Charlotte, by Carol Anne Duffy

(The first two stanzas don’t appear on the stone)



Walking the parlour, round round round the table,

miles; dead sisters stragglers till ghosts; retired wretch,

runty, pale, plain C. Brontë; mouth skewed, tooth-rot.

You see you have prayed to stone; unheard, thwarted.



But would yank your heart through your frock,

fling it as a hawk over the moors, flaysome.

So the tiny handwriting of your mind as you pace.

So not female not male like the wind’s voice.



The vice of this place clamps you; daughter; father

who will not see thee wed, traipsing your cold circles

between needlework, bed, sleep’s double-lock.

Mother and siblings, vile knot under the flagstones, biding.



But the prose seethes, will not let you be, be thus;

bog-burst of pain, fame, love, unluck. True; enough.

So your still doll-steps in the dollshouse parsonage.

So your writer’s hand the hand of a god rending the roof.

