Lazarus Women

By Trish Hopkinson

Lazarus Women
–found remix from Margaret Fuller Ossoli’s “Appeal for an Asylum for Discharged Female Convicts”

The unutterable woe
and unwilling sin—
the pleading eyes of
these strange angels.

Neglected and huddled,
childish, and hidden
beneath the ashes of
dreadful social malady.

Some idea of a noble
reformation, a beneficent
existence, must awaken
in generous tenderness.

A decided clear light,
worthy of the brightest
planet—an ossification
of the degraded, the still

spirit.

Source: Ossoli, Margaret Fuller. “Appeal for an Asylum for Discharged Female Convicts.” Life Without and Life Within; or Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Boston, MA. 1859. Project Guttenberg. EBook #39037, March 3, 2012.

Trish Hopkinson is a poet and advocate for the literary arts. You can find her online at SelfishPoet.com and provisionally in Colorado, where she runs the regional poetry group Rock Canyon Poets, curates the Poetry Happens series for KRCL 90.9 FM, and is a board member of the International Women’s Writing Guild. Her poetry has been published in several lit mags and journals, including Sugar House Review, Glass Poetry Press, and The Penn Review; her third chapbook Footnote was published by Lithic Press in 2017, and her most recent e-chapbook Almost Famous was published by Yavanika Press in 2019. Hopkinson happily answers to labels such as atheist, feminist, and empty nester; and enjoys traveling, live music, and craft beer.