(i)

The ocean is the oldest cliché.

When we came home there was

a dead bee on the windowsill –

its body a perfect death’s head

question mark, its elements, sodium

calcium & potassium curled

halfway to the sea.

(ii)

T his afternoon was as hot as Greece.

We missed the bee’s last do-se-do -

distant arthropodic cousin in shell-shock

miniature. Dead from time’s comical

Acme weight. Imprinted on our layers

of human memory & recorded thus.

Filed: insect sedimentary.

(iii)

A new home was sluiced on land.

Through the meniscus of coast, pods stuck.

The amphibians, neither here nor there

kept genetic ‘get out of jail free’ cards.

Some larger, more aggressive marine exiles

(pre-Cuban) returned to the aquatic fray.

Made use of their bulk, heavyweights

who outclassed all comers.

This primeval Bay of Pigs,

& pre-Darwinian back flip.

(iv)

It is the deep sea where everything stops.

Philosophy & sex coexist; a dark thesis writ.

Light mostly extinguished, but for some

slight phosphorescence, evades touch,

as sight demystified, reveals nothing.

In the ether of unlight, feeling is everything.

First racial memories – trilobites’ dodgem car

head-on into an armoured scorpions grin.

Cambrian sideshow alley adrenaline.

(v)

But we regress.

Our new home is closer to that first ocean.

Pre-salt, pre-water, more tanning salon

than 2 brd flat. The ants & their

artery/vein routine we notice, shift

their long march, include the kitchen sink.

The Silk Road to our bin is Semtex lined.

We’ve thrown in an oasis for fun.

Will they find the bee?

Our small deposit of platinum,

alloyed by the alchemical sun.

(vi)

Do they remember a mother, these

full stops fossilised into the lining

of our Westinghouse’s air-tight door?

What good, hindsight?

After the Earth & Ocean

lodged their divorce papers

& freezing had begun.

(vii)
On St Georges’ Rd

the stream of life

poured on.