The winter my husband died, I was thrown

on my own resources, such as they were--

I lost each of my children, one by one,

even my youngest and dearest daughter--

dead of the cholera, all of them dead.

I covered their coffins in cedar boughs.

Now I've four bare walls and straw for a bed,

but I'll never go willing to workhouse,

not while I'm able to make my round:

Aldgate to Whitechapel, St. George's East,

then Stepney to Bromley, eyes to the ground

for scrap of linen, or dog's dung at least.

I look to no one. I pray and I curse.

I keep a copper or two in my purse.