peony season
for dan, after derek jarman
‘Peonies are impossible. This is his only regret.’
—Anna Pavord on Derek Jarman
the beautiful boy tells me that a greek goddess created peonies
to reflect the moon’s glow,
so i buy three bunches for my birthday—
a lifelong believer in the virtues of homosexuality,
i welcome this fresh year with floral flirtation
mary oliver tells me the blooms will break my heart,
but i still wait, anxious for the petals to unfurl
and hit me where it hurts,
for the lidl pickings
to show me how to be so handsome,
so wild and imperfect—
it takes three nights of watching the moon
for the peonies to break through sap-covered
green-leaf cocoons—
the beautiful boy tells me that the goddess would be so happy
to see my living room full of pink-red petalled deovtion
and, to my surprise, the blooms don’t break my heart,
even when the petals fall to the coffee table,
i only want to become something new—
when i kiss the beautiful boy
many moons later,
i know the goddess is so happy to see my desire unfurl
derek jarman tells the sunday correspondent
that he wants to be remembered as a flower—
a pansy, a red hot poker!—
his queerness marked in eternal garden beauty
i tell derek, i tell mary, i tell the beautiful boy,
remember me as a peony—
impossible,
full of desire
About this poem
This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2023. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor for 2023 was Aoife Lyall.
Editor’s Comments:
This is not a poem for subtlety, but celebration, not culpable deniability but determined vulnerability: “a lifelong believer in the virtues of homosexuality, / i welcome this fresh year with floral flirtation”. The repetition of “the beautiful boy” across the poem carries the speaker’s desires, hopes, fears and fulfilment, as individually and collectively as the flowers bought in bunches for his birthday. The poems ends with something of a euphoria: a request that the speaker be remembered not for his words or deeds, but for his character, for his life, one lived “impossible, / full of desire”.
Author’s Comments:
This poem is a love letter to boy-kissing; to my transsexuality; to the roots grown by the trans and queer people before me and the community that nurtures me today, that allow me to be so vibrant, petalled and alive. I thought this was a poem about desire, but after sitting with it again to write this author’s note, I think it’s just as much a poem about loving myself.
Buying yourself flowers is often seen as indulgent, but I think it’s imperative! You deserve to be surrounded by beauty, simply because you’re alive – Mary Oliver already told us ‘Joy is not made to be a crumb.’ As a trans, queer, man my joy, my beauty, my existence is so often treated as impossible – I wrote this poem to let you know it’s the most natural thing in the world.
