Poem
Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch
THE STAIN
THE STAIN
THE STAIN
Come to think of it, in a certain lightit looked ochre, all down the staircase,
marking the site of some terrible accident,
except that we all knew it had been tea
and that it was me who had dropped the tray,
collecting every fragment before an audience
of twenty in the hotel lobby, going to pieces
but acting like it was a regular clear-up.
The interior scar I lived with for months
like your death at twenty-one. Six weeks
before you jumped, you gave me your old desk –
but it was only after you’d leapt that I found
the inkstain in one of the rosewood drawers
and thought about the colour of the stones on the shore.
© 2008, Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch
From: Not In These Shoes
Publisher: Picador, London
From: Not In These Shoes
Publisher: Picador, London
Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1966)
Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch grew up in New Quay, Ceredigion. After reading Classics at Cambridge University, she took an MA in Creative Writing at Cardiff University. She lived in Oxford, Paris and the Isles of Scilly before returning to New Quay. Her work has been shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award (2014), the Roland Mathias Prize (2013) and Wales Book of the Year (2009). Samantha has taught...
Poems
Poems of Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch
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THE STAIN
Come to think of it, in a certain lightit looked ochre, all down the staircase,
marking the site of some terrible accident,
except that we all knew it had been tea
and that it was me who had dropped the tray,
collecting every fragment before an audience
of twenty in the hotel lobby, going to pieces
but acting like it was a regular clear-up.
The interior scar I lived with for months
like your death at twenty-one. Six weeks
before you jumped, you gave me your old desk –
but it was only after you’d leapt that I found
the inkstain in one of the rosewood drawers
and thought about the colour of the stones on the shore.
From: Not In These Shoes
THE STAIN
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