It's what happens to women, no matter who you are.    
Divine inside? They'll only see the face.                             
It's coming, despite your warmth, your grit, your heart –

the sudden shift from beauty, to disgrace.                        
A light snapped off, and you're gone. You're in the dark.
No-one can see you now. You are unglued,                       
for while you slept, the world took you softly apart.      
Now man after man walks through the ghost of you.    

On a morning like any other, she wakes to find                
her lover moved out, and all her admirers gone              
from her steps, as if with one breath, one mind,             
they abandoned their roses there like skeletons.            
A half-penned love note stutters towards the sea,         
embarrassed, undoing its ‘love', and ‘dear', and ‘we'.   

ROS BARBER (1964) se je rodila v Washingtonu in odraščala v Angliji. Je avtorica treh pesniških zbirk. Njena poezija je bila objavljena v Poetry Review, London Magazine, The Guardian in številnih drugih publikacijah. Ros ima doktorat z doktorsko tezo o pesniku Marlowu. Že več kot desetletje poučuje književnost na Univerzi v Sussexu. Leta 2011 je prejela prestižno Hoffmanovo nagrado za The Marlowe Papers. Živi v Brightonu, v Angliji.