Dryococelus australis
We fled from terror. Black rats migrated onto
Lord Howe from shipwrecks & we fed their
ravaging colonial instincts. Without contradiction
there can be no life, so a thicket of us hitched
a ride on driftwood & by the mercy of the moon
we managed to find landfall; refugees who had
turned themselves into sticks. This sheer peak
was almost barren, but for a scraggly melaleuca
shrub which had like us, held the gate against
the fittest surviving. We were rescued again;
years later, still a small outpost on the edge of
civilisation, our shit led you to us. Surely our
near miss is a cautionary tale? Don’t you see?
There’s no captive breeding program for you.