Morning
To that black morning
I screamed
No
you cannot come in
like this
brutishly
without permission
To that black morning
I cried out
you don’t look like him
you have nothing in common
with the man I love
you cannot
come here
and tell me those words
violence incarnate
To that black morning
I cried no
He didn’t send you
his soul would have never chosen
morning
to leave
the other side
To that black morning
I cried so much
I grew tired
of speaking
wretched morning
it knew nothing
of our calm mornings
our sweet mornings
our blissful mornings
A morning
is red
passion
sun
it’s blue
ocean
sky
life
a morning
is white
light
On those mornings
that look like you
I’m calmed
The black morning has gone.
Hélène Herault is is a French writer and poet. She views writing as an essential, indispensable act. Her incisive poetry and prose draw on her life experiences as an activist, mother, grandmother, and reader of many, many books. Previous work includes the short story collection
La Petite Prigent, winner of the 2018 Ozoir’Elles prize, and the short stories “Un Exil de Papier”, awarded second prize in the 2019 Concours de Nouvelles LIBRE-Librinova, and “Au Prix Fort”, which appeared in the anthology
Loin du Coeur (benefiting the Solidarité Femmes foundation). Her recent epistolary novella, Sens Unique, was published in 2024 by L’Ire de L’ours. She is a frequent and longstanding contributor of poetry to
Pro/p(r)ose Magazine.
Liza Tripp has been a translator of French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese into English since 2003. She has translated numerous books for publishers including Assouline, Rizzoli, and Schiffer Publishing. She holds an MPhil in French Translation from CUNY Graduate Center, a BA in French Translation from Barnard College, and a Certificate in French to English Translation from New York University.
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