At Derek Jarman's Cottage by Morgan Melhuish

Prospect Cottage is a bumblebee
black wood
yellow window frames

Bombus Subterraneus drink in colour
feast on red clover
blue viper’s bugloss
silver sea kale
every seed a shingle
this rock garden
an oasis in the desert of Dungensss

Down on the shore there’s a body
sea tousled flotsam
he has no name
but baked salt on skin
attracts the bees
dancing in the power station’s shadow

Boys have been washing up here for centuries
he might be French Huguenot
or Romani
Afghan or African
- this lad who failed to float

His body is a road map
a sprawling A-Z
along his spine
from Syria to Serbia,
Slovenia and Switzerland
the S of sacrifice
arteries he’s traversed
barbed wire grazes
an open wound

Britain is a bruise
a blot on his ankle
the wasted journey
he didn’t quite make
sand to stone

Bees land on bare soles
drink in salt through their feet
they know the patterns of migration
trying to thrive far from the hives of home
oblivious to borders and tragedy
there is no sweetness here

 

 

About the author: Morgan Melhuish (he/him) is a queer writer and educator from West Sussex. This year his poetry has been published by Pilot Press, petrichor, Nine Pens Press and in diet milk magazine. You can find him on X.