Good Morning Midnight
Jean Rhys, best known for “Wide Sargasso Sea”, wrote about women in the 1920s and 1930s, this poem tries the capture the spirit of some of her novels. Originally published in Exit 21: Poems Selected by Ian McMillan.
Good Morning Midnight
(after Jean Rhys)
This hostel room is bare.
The remaining wallpaper,
wallflower-like, refuses to peel.
She’s huddled into the chair,
knees drawn up to lessen
the impact of floorboard-gap draughts.
The bedcover remains unkindly crumpled.
The man in the night, as others before,
became loving by drink alone.
The wine in the dresser bottle: uncomfortably
blood-stained. And with more body
than in those bruise-coloured veins.
Outside the window the fountain
spurts so icy clear in the dying night.
Emma Lee
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