Silk Weavers, Spitalfields

Black
I arrived at the edges of things
Place where people sifted in and out
Sometimes stayed, sometimes left

Plain
Fournier Street attic
Light for as long as possible
We worked

Fancy
Filling our feather’d nation
Here they grew fat, and liv’d at Ease
Impossibly fine

Flowered
One for sacrifice, one for the wilderness
Scapegoat, garlanded
What is this quirk of belonging

Natalie Shaw