A sharply observed portrait of a comically foreign creature is shadowed by unease about its future
The Bluff
The newt that plays so delicately dead
must be on the qui vive unless terror
just flicks the switch. Its limbs go limp,
its upturned orange underbelly over-ripe:
a toxic flag unfurled from the beyond.
– Clubbed fingers, clammy green and spectral,
appear to have slipped off the frets
of a miniature guitar.