Flower-Girl, Isleworth Hospital Poem by Eric Ratcliffe

Like a live signal, a poet should compress her
into a star-cluster in some constellation
for Shaw to admire - for this is another Eliza,
brash, honey-haired, a tawny thruster
straight backed as a Roman fruit girl,
with a skirt blue as the shouting sky.

Her hand of flowers, struck like a sensual torch,
flares in rebellion at the gate.
In a sprat-faced house, rough with kindness,
on a had bed, she will take her lover
with nine eyes and an open kiss
and a curse for all polite relatives.

She is a tawny thruster, this Eliza.