Let us evolve our children into amphibians
Poem
by B. Anne Adriaens
With rivers no longer confined to ground level,
I should grow wings so I can climb the atmosphere,
record the flux of water vapour, and map
that fluvial network, see if it mirrors the one below,
with its pattern blurred by repeated floods,
bleeding into ink blots on the map of the present,
until the sea breaks down our defences and we
acknowledge the forests and fields on the seabed.
I should grow gills so I can track the future
ghosts of today’s children as they set up home
among the giant kelp—those trees swaying in
a breeze of ocean currents. They’ll dance in slo-mo
circles on seagrass meadows, only surfacing
to let the rain wash the brine from their eyelids.
About the Author
B. Anne Adriaens’ work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, including Poetry Ireland Review, Ink Sweat and Tears, Stand Magazine, Bloody amazing! (anthology, winner of the Saboteur Awards 2021), Abridged, The Honest Ulsterman, Poetry Scotland (issue 102 + issue 109), Confluence Magazine, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Black Light Engine Room Press Non-Fiction Anthology, The Other Side of Hope, Lucent Dreaming Anthology ‘For a Friend’, Skylight 47, Acumen, Emerge Literary Journal, Amsterdam Quarterly, Osmosis Press, A New Ulster and Star*Line. Her pamphlet ‘Haunt’ was highly commended in the Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition 2024. She currently lives in Somerset.