Emmanuelle Malhappe [France]

 

 

 Near Mock-Orange 

For my mother
 
In sink, sun
So close to mock-orange tree
Leaves of an escarole
Crisp and crack their veins
Beneath green-as-death gaze
Of two childlike trout
Soft-wood dish rack
A few shivering strawberries
And beside them, two rings
She has just slipped off
Looking out into distance
At zest of a past
From which she does not return.

 
Walking upon the night
 
Walking upon shore
Feet cooled by sand
And already torn by salt
Tonight, when moon, hardened with frost,
Carved stars into jewels of light
Just at edge of a brow of stone
In cleft rock where sea boiled o'er
As starved sex would open, rosy and proud
I saw, resting still in depths of strait
My own boundless eye, mocking me.

 
Leave Me My Wrinkles!
 
Leave me my wrinkles!
Leave upon my face
and body the trace
of my battles
of my victories
of my windows of distress.
 
How to travel if you steal my maps,
where, year after year, paths have been tattooed?
Don't you find that my arms embrace better now?
That my thinner lips are less afraid to love you?
 
Leave me my wrinkles and weaknesses
Leave me strength it took to become
child I carried within.
 
 
 
Author’s Bionote:
 
*Emmanuelle Malhappe began by teaching eighteenth-century literature at the University in Paris, France. Later and now, she is practicing psychoanalysis in Montpellier, France. She has always written, whether it be drama or short stories, essays, radio columns, plays or poetry. Her poetry and short stories have been translated into several languages. Her poetic collection Enter the in-between is published by Éditions L'Harmattan (2025). Her collection mixing poetry and philosophy (Women’s sparkle, silence of the feminine) was published by Ubik-Art Moresa (2025). In 2025, she published with the same editions, in collaboration with Antonio Rodriguez Yuste, I Laid My Hand, a collection of poetry. She also wrote an edition of Marivaux's Jeu de l'amour et du hasard, Flammarion (1999). She received the Grand Prix de la nouvelle Gaston Baissette for her collection of short stories The solitude of the swans. She also was the first poet to receive Seoul K International Literary prize in 2026.