French Hotel
Dorothy Molloy
from Hare Soup, Faber, 2004

We get there through the blinding fields of rape.
Dinner is late.
Pâté de foie gras, a piece of veal:
cold cuts
upon a plate. Dusty wine. Crusty bread.

Madame is pregnant; Monsieur is en garde
behind the till.
A serving-girl, too shy to speak, can only take
our order
for dessert. A trifling thing. Compote.

The rain drops on the corrugated roof.
The dark magnolia
opens up her cup beside the trough.
Insomniac,
the orphaned calves, the bonny-clabbered cows

with bursting teats, the honking force-fed geese
swirl
in my head. To while away the wee hours,
I swat mosquitoes;
count the corpses on the blood-stained ceiling of this small hotel.

It's croissants, comme toujours, for breakfast; pots
of confiture,
café au lait. We check the etymology
of Fontainebleau.
'Belle eau,' says the patron. 'C'est ça. Bien sûr.'

We bid a fond adieu. Unfold our map. Swear
we'll be back.
Drive south, as planned, to do the Côte d'Azur.

Hare Soup is the startling début from Dorothy Molloy. Molloy's deftly crafted poems are as unsettling as they are affecting, exploring a world of intimacy from the tensely erotic to something altogether more malevolent. Using cabaret and dark comedy, she holds up a mirror to our most private relations, producing a poetry-of-the-absurd that will make your hair stand on end. But there is also a very subtle poet at work, whose lyrical, musical lines resonate well beyond their final reading.