Fair Maids of February*

Little milk flower
trembling in the first light
barely a cotton skirt
its ragged hem almost elegant -

So many of you this morning!
White headscarves drawn tight
over the quiet graves
all wormy and downy -

Sweetest girls,
under the ivy and yew
tend your tapered
lives with light.

O suffer the little children - 
their faces in the darkest hours
on street corners, under lights, 
their lovely necks bowed.

*A folk name for the snowdrop