From ‘Lives of British Shrews’

CERTHIA:            creepy post chicxulub convergent evolution    counter-shaded
neoavian therapod winding the spiral rhytidome    lichened bark-back    breast luminous
like lard    and a crescent of bill    scissoring to release    thin bursts of high-pitched
liquid twitter    like the chalk-softened trill of a titmouse    crawling the columns of the
high cenozoic    to probe the airy lignacline
            araneus and minutus    dishwater mouse
            fodiens    washed-out raven
            gloss-up    after the autumn moult    then fade
birch twigs poking out like a besom    from the split trunk of a willow    just inches above
the shrieking garlic    six eggs    like great tits    more speckled than blotchy    where the
bug-eyed blind nidicolous chicks    quivering in the dark like a litter of saurian pygmies
were gone by the third day    the little soft scimitars    of their squealing bills
disarticulate in the loam
            beetles roll the sunstone    like
            the angel of the lord    sealing earth
            releasing    fire
the profligacy of life exemplified by rates of infant mortality    329 deaths of children
under 5 per 1000 live births    [great britain 1800]    or 90    [central african republic
2023]    in each case the population growing exponentially    in fact they are like the
atlantic cod shedding three million eggs per fecund female    if two survive to reproduce
mission accomplished    the rest lost bets    collateral