WHO WE MOURN

Carson Wolfe

A contrapuntal written from words spoken in a documentary on The Yorkshire Ripper

there are a certain kind of women,

of loose morals, never from a

decent family. father distraught

by the Jamaican boyfriend.

streetwalking the red light.

very, you know,

frightening.

within a respectable working class

to look at dead whores

is just too dark.

the ones that shock, 

perfectly innocent 

a bright future taken 

only sixteen, a young lass

so beautiful, such a waste.

worrying for the mothers,

though a pretty death makes it easier.

no one wants 

to dig a grave

for the proper girls that live here. 

Carson Wolfe (they/them) is a Mancunian poet and parent. Their debut poetry pamphlet Boy(ish) Vest was praised by Dr Kim Moore as an ‘unforgettable, wild, risk-taking roller-coaster of a book’. In 2021, they were an Aurora Prize Winner and a Button Video Contest winner. Their poetry has appeared in Button Poetry, Rattle, Fourteen Poems, and The Penn Review. They live in Manchester with their wife and three children.