Fiona Robyn is a writer and a blogger from rural Hampshire. She edits a literary blogzine at www.ahandfulofstones.com, and posts about her life as a writer at www.plantingwords.com. Her first collection of poetry is Living Things, and her debut novel, The Letters, will be published by Snowbooks in March. Her main site is at www.fionarobyn.com.

Living things

I have carried living things in my hands all week, sneaked up on

daddy-long-legs, pulled them off painted walls and held their brittle
bodies.

I’ve picked up blue-black beetles like shiny stones, moved them

from inside rooms to out; they stick to my thumb, they seem

happy enough to cling on. Best of all, the two young frogs

who’d come onto the kitchen tiles to see what they could find.

I watched them bending their tiny legs, toothpick bones side,

felt their rubbery skin against mine as they pushed away, they were
amazing.

I have held living things in my hands all week, knowing

if I wanted I could close the space between my fingers.

And I think how it might have been for those two frogs, to be lifted up

so high, so fast: and when the light comes back they could be anywhere.