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11th July, 2025

Friday Poem – ‘(i)’ by Deryn Rees-Jones

Photo of Paris looking across the city towards the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘(i)’ by Deryn Rees-Jones, the first in a sequence of sonnets from her new collection Hôtel Amour.

(i) On the blue sofa in the Rue de Navarin there’s sunshine, a ghost of summer.The Eiffel Tower, like a woman, brazen, each night unravels, slips out, over and over, from her glittering dress. I kick dead leaves and rhymes along the river’s lines.The digital world continues its insistent & galaxial glow.Then episodes of happiness break through. Our small, impossible lives bow, nod, yawn, stretch out. I’m thinking about the lovers, smoking, now, beside the voiceless river. There’s grief in everything, and suddenly you. As bedfellows, I think, we’re filled with terror. But I like the way words stray to you, your finger light against my nipple. I like the way the o leans tight into the e in cœur. How does it end? My thoughts bed down, tuck in, wild as a pathogen. Error after error. Sshhhhhh.Who’s that in the mirror? But look. Our bodies know us and are less than neat. And I’m here, whatever that means, and alive, which at this point seems quite a feat.

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Related Books

This cover shows a blurred image of a women in a 1920s style black dress standing in front of a patterned wall. The text reads: Hotel Amour. Deryn Rees-Jones

Hôtel Amour

Deryn Rees-Jones

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