Poetry Corner
Molly The Bourne
BEN BRUGES
From some distance in time, Turner’s print
centres the stream, rushing down towards
the sea, a foot-bridge over this open sewer
links the impoverished fishing community
to the more affluently shod of the Old Town.
He didn’t include mischievous Molly Hawkins,
chased with stolen skirt-full of apples over
the rickety bridge, the splash into muck, standing
around, watching her struggle, watching her drown.
Forward to now, the black top tamps down
the stream, which growls and murmurs below,
sometimes breaks free from privatised neglect,
before flowing past Christina Rosetti’s convalescence
to the passageway where tiny Molly appears
distressed, a struggling, filthy apparition,
sigil of cruelty, neglect, impoverishment,
held where the stall holders let her drown—
their theft of her life as a warning against theft.
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