2015 MELITA HUME POETRY PRIZE SHORTLIST FOCUS: JESSICA MAYHEW

SHE GRADUATED WITH A MASTERS FROM UCL

Jessica Mayhew's pamphlet, Someone Else's Photograph, was published in 2012 by Crystal Clear Creators. She graduated with a Masters from University College London in 2015. Her poetry and fiction have been published in magazines and online, including in Ambit, Stand and Staple.

Rainy Season

Monks stay put

so they don’t hurt the shoots.

We trawl through gutter-run

the colour of precious wood

for another meal of rice

while cockroaches tide up walls

above the lapping line.

Fon Tok, rain tongue

spitting on a foot of soi water,

lightning I cannot pronounce

but count, gaining ground

each time saffron dusk cracks –

five miles, four miles, three.

We lie with windows open,

swiping mosquitoes we can only hear

but smear someone else’s blood,

mingled with mine, down white paint.

When I sleep, the rain

is bats back home

that have somehow learned to sing

the splashy notes of blackbirds

decked with frost, a proper October.

Here, alms bowls fill

with baht and water,

monks crouch, protected by the blue

of old tattoos, the five lines,

Buddha, serene, around every neck,

but all this season, your chest when bare, was wet.

We should make an amulet of the rain.

Comments

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