While Refuged at Sophie’s Cottage as Bombs Fall on London, Nina Hamnett Pens a Postcard to Wyndham Lewis
by Tom Holmes
Sophie collects new moons
just before dawn—
“When they’re most ripe,”
as she will explain—
then stacks them in her cellar
like fine porcelain plates.
When a full moon arrives
in an afternoon,
she’ll face the other way.
With a mirror for aim,
she’ll fling a new moon
over her shoulder hoping
to slice the full one
from the unsculpted sky.
Henri is Henri Gaudier-Brzeska—Modern French Vorticist Sculptor who died in WWI at the age of 23. Sophie is his lover. Nina Hamnett, the Queen of Bohemia, is Sophie and Henri’s friend.
