Interior (Model Reading), by Mark A. Murphy

Interior, Model Reading, by Edward Hopper (USA) 1925.

Interior (Model Reading)

The year is 1925. Our model is reading Fitzgerald
before her dresser in a white chemise,
her long bare legs exposed to the cold morning air.

We are watching her from the bed, head down,
face obscured by her long black hair,
immersed in the latest best seller, a novel

about the American Dream, as told by Nick 
Carraway (the narrator) a bond salesman living 
in West Egg, Long Island, a far cry away from 
 
our model’s life in her stark white room 
        in Queens, 
taking her clothes off for the camera, living
out of a suitcase, dreaming of becoming an actor, 
 
or dancer on Broadway. "I might just as well 
become a writer," she thinks, turning the page 
at the critical moment when Myrtle is killed 
 
by the car which Daisy is driving. "Every girl
has a story to tell. Every girl dreams big. Every girl
wants to be loved. No girl ever expects to die."

Mark A. Murphy

Mark A. Murphy was born in 1969 in the UK. His poetry publications include Tin Cat Alley (1996), Our Little Bit of Immortality (2011), Night-watch Man & Muse (2013) and his next full length collection, Night Wanderer’s Plea is pending from Waterloo Press, UK. His latest collection, To Nora, A Singer of Sad Songs is to be published this year by Clare Songbirds Publishing House in America. He is currently looking for a publisher for his collection of epigrams, Little Known Aphorisms and he is now also working on a full length collection of ekphrastic poems, Word Painting. His poems have been published in 18 countries in over 200 journals in print and online.