A Tourniquet for Emily Davison

I found her listed under Flora
Smudged on a coloured, shining plate
Dogeared and dirty. As for Fauna
We are all that, pelted with anarchy.
        W.S. Graham

A harridan-Houdini, cages – and not just the ribcage of that final horse
you hailed like a tram on Tattenham Corner – they the reynes
of his brydel henten – but corsets, railings, handcuffs, cubby holes,
heat shafts inside the Houses of Parliament, taunted you all your life,
faire Emelye, like the Keep Out signs on the King’s Estate
or the clang of your yellowing cell in Strangeways
each time they frogmarched you back. What manner of woman were you?
Appalled editorials harrumphed in a fug of pipe fumes;
a child on a poster in a nacreous cardigan wept stunted tears of neglect –
Mummy’s a Suffragette! – outside Marylebone Station.

At first the slippery trick of fasting set you free, by which the bones
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