Man Eating Leeks
Watercolour on ivory
C. 1824–5

Today I make myself green ivories,
Unfix a broken rib and blacken it
With carbon, drip on water so it spreads,
Mix egg wash watercolour pigments fit
To reinforce the scenes. The creatures grow,
Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, my self
Before me. One such miniature depicts
A beastly man swallowing leeks. His throat
Is dirt, and yet his ghost could sit with Raphael
In feast and listen to his fairest speech:
And from these corporal nutriments perhaps
Your bodies may at last turn all to Spirit.
Through his visage I recast elements,
Sustain my form across regeneration.

*Lines 6, 7, 11 and 12: From Paradise Lost, Milton

Daniel Dean (he/him), born and raised in Staffordshire, graduated with a degree in English Language & Literature from the University of Oxford. A fan of art, archives and oddballs, he writes poetry that delves into and reworks the past.