BEECHEY ISLAND
On John Torrington, 20, of HMS Terror, who died of TB, pneumonia and lead poisoning and was buried 1st January, 1845.
The bear left, a black cloud slid in
The canvas over the grave snapped: pickaxe sparking
I cleared the stones and thumped a spade through the ice
Don’t shake me
He was five feet down in the permafrost
Buried by lamplight in light snowfall
Snow dripped into the pit as we prised off the lid
Don’t strike me
He was there, right there
Seen through the bubbles and cracks in the ice
Which I melted with buckets of water
Don’t soak me
From his bed of shavings I raised him
And looked close into his eyes
His head lolled on my shoulder
Don’t lift me
I lay him under the sky
Most thin and delicate,
Ribbons tying his pale soft hands and feet
Don’t reveal me
With a scalpel I entered his brain
Sliced open his chest, examined his
Fatless, shrunken body, his black shrivelling lungs
Don’t cut me
I pulled off his thumbnail
Removed the spotted scarf which bound his head
Sheared off some hair from the nape of his neck
Don’t rob me
I dressed him again, folding the blue wool shroud
Tacking new nails into the careful coffin lid,
Edged with tape, tin plaque in the shape of a heart
Don’t freeze me
And I buried him a second time
Overlooking the filament
Stretching out into the Arctic, from Beechey Island
Don’t leave me
