Hagworm’s Nest, Walmsgate, 1897

by Barbara Barnes

The sky is made when walls run out of bricks.
The sky is boiled wool. It’s an upturned bucket,
we are its dregs emptied onto the courtyard cobbles.

Who knew a baby could be made from a skimp of gin,
a skirt lifted in Mad Alice Lane, that a child could be housed
in a cupboard like new bread. Our mother feeds us scraps

bought with a stranger’s touch, our father steals her leftovers.
We mistrust a heaped plate, keep our desires lean–
hunger measured against the length of a workhouse sleeve.

By day we are the mission ladies’ dearly beleaguered,
by night we rove in packs, taunting the officer’s stick.
Our shadows flit across a sunken moon.