Good golly miss Molly

Did you marry a man with a miner’s lamp and

No brolly?

 

Didn’t you know that the marriage bed came sprinkled with

Soot? Did he blind you

With a title, then tempt you with a butty?

 

How long did you keep that aspidistra flying?

Through the childbirth and the child death

And the end of the piano music

Spinning lace while your son

Learnt to spin a story.

(And how were your hands

After all that washing?)

 

When will you hold court 

With the scientists and the academics and writers? 

 

(C) Rebecca Deans 2016

 

 

A Derbyshire writer with an MA in Creative Writing from UEA, Becky published her first novella, Exposé, in 1998 and was instrumental in publishing two anthologies at UEA, including the 2000 MA anthology Magpie. She has performed her poetry and prose throughout the UK; most recently she curated the spoken word at Belper Goes Green and Duffield Arts Festival and was featured at Derby Folk Festival. The first regular spoken word poetry event, Word Peace, went down really well in October. A multi-instrumentalist, she teaches the saxophone and is currently, finally, learning the clarinet.