I remember my ex-girlfriend
running through a field of sunflowers
as I look at a dead bumblebee
lying on its back on the window sill,
its downy head of battered fluff
as stubborn and bull-headed
as a drunk oaf. Bloated,
like a bluebottle in a stripy jumper,
I roll it off the ledge
onto the palm of my hand,
its wings more like frail stained
glass windows closed over
a pregnant blob. Woollen arms
with question marks for hands,
the hidden tongue, the gilded eye
that sees all in honeycomb,
and again I see Bourdon,
but she is waiting for me
to get out of bed. The sun
is shining, the sky is blue topaz.
She is at the hotel window,
fretting and stamping her feet.
We arrived late the night before,
after a long day driving south.
Get up, she says, as she finally
bolts out the door. I slip out
from the warm sheets,
walk over to the window
and look out to see her running
through the field of sunflowers,
her hands spread out like wings
skimming off the flower heads
that were the same colour
as the bull-headed drunk oaf,
the woollen blob of fool’s gold
flashing on the lake-bed of memory –
the bumblebee in the palm of my hand
that crashed into the window pane
like Bourdon crashed into a tree.
I touch its downy flank and remember
the sandy dunes of her skin,
the sweet drone of her voice,
silent as the bee’s wings
sleeping in the sunflowers of dreams.
© Paul McMahon
Picture 10275449, 1960s photograph by H Armstrong Roberts, image copyright Mary Evans / Classic Stock
From Belfast, Paul McMahon lives in Cork. His debut poetry chapbook, Bourdon, is published by Southword Editions. His work has appeared in Poetry Review, Rialto, The London Magazine, The North, Threepenny Review, Best New British and Irish Poets 2018, Irish Times, Stinging Fly, Poetry Ireland Review, and elsewhere. He was awarded The Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize by Carol Ann Duffy, and The Nottingham Poetry Prize by Neil Astley. Other awards include first prize in The Moth International Poetry Prize, The Westival International Poetry Prize, second prize in the Basil Bunting and the Salt International Poetry Prizes, Runner-up in The Troubadour and The Atlanta Review Poetry Prizes, and four Arts Council bursary awards for poetry.
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