A bit overcast

Reminded me of Stevie Smith's poem The Sea-Widow

How fares it with you Mrs Cooper my bride?
Long are the years since you lay by my side.
Do you wish I was back? Do you speak of me dearest?
I wish you were back for me to hold nearest.
Who then lies nearer, Mrs Cooper my bride?
A black man comes in with the evening tide.
What is his name? Tell me! How does he dare?
He comes uninvited. His name is Despair.



Here you can listen to Stevie Smith reciting the poem in her cut-glass English accent.
Quirky and unique, she wrote unconventional poetry that is easy to dismiss as eccentric or light-weight but in fact addresses the deepest human emotions: love, loss, pain, death. Often her poems touch on matters that affected her own life, as this one (her father abandoned the family and disappeared off to sea when she was three.)

She also wrote three idiosyncratic novels, drew comical sketches and loved cats. As with her religious beliefs (?agnostic) her sexuality remained ambiguous. She was a close friend of George Orwell but may also have had lesbian affairs. She lived out her life in a wholly female household.
A biography of the poet can be found here.