Susie Gharib

Catherine Cookson’s The Rag Nymph

‘There are heroes in the seaweed’,
Leonard Cohen had ardently sung.
I never fully comprehended his meaning
until I read about her Millie and Ben,
the dens inhabited by rag nymphs and villains,
but her Cinderella needs not the son of a king,
a ballroom where a shoe is lingering,
waiting to be discovered by a prince.

In a world that totters on drink
where nymphs are abducted and sold like hens,
where men of authority aren’t worth a pence,
she salvages beauty with the aid of a matron
who pulls a cart and fends for herself.

She renders a law of heredity impotent.
A murderer for a father and a prostitute-mum
do not necessarily taint a girl’s blood
when snatched from the fangs of a dirty pimp.

Bleak are the times of her context.
Bleak are the prospects of downtrodden bairns,
but she weaved a tale of genuine fragrance
redolent of her life with her own husband.