Francesca Beard's poem, Baby Scorpion, deals with transformation and consequence.  

A baby scorpion crawls from a burning log in front of a couple who are keeping warm by the fire. At first the girl feels pity for the small creature's vulnerability but then imagines it as a grown scorpion and the danger it would pose. Her lover kills it but it appears again, to rise as a ghost. The poem would appear to end with the death of the two lovers, and of the fire itself. Everything is consumed.

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