Tiktaalik Rosae, or, If We Were the Earliest Example of a Link Between Fish and Tetrapods Would You Climb onto the Mudflats with Me?

Kym Deyn

31 lines

Your fin-feets newly evolved,
the best in Late Devonian
stylings. It is hot and wet
and we have no words
for trees. They are so new
their leaves are saying
hello to one another.
The air dewy in gulped-
down lungs. We leave
the Age of Fishes. We
flourish in a lane entirely
our own. We are inventing
us in this slime patch.
This could be a huge mistake.
We have no fingers to count
the consequences, no time
to meet our descendants.
Better to be simple fish,
our only thought the tide
breathing us in and out.
Let’s give in and become
crabs again. Let’s push
the horrid beast back in
so there’ll be no apes
or laundry. No thousand
ways of uncaring misery.
But, if I had to choose:
I’d spin from spore to sprite,
have the patience of a planet
curdling to life, to climb

onto the mudflats with you.

Kym Deyn

Kym Deyn

Kym Deyn is a writer and editor. Their debut collection folkish was published by Nine Arches in 2026 and was made a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Their pamphlets include Dionysia published by Verve Poetry Press, and Unfurl, a collaborative fiction experiment. They have been widely published in anthologies and journals for their poetry and prose, including Oxford Poetry, 14 Poems and Strange Horizons, and are the recipient of a Jerwood Fellowship from New Writing North. They run The Braag CIC, a poetry and speculative fiction press.

Issue 3

Purchase: