Artwork Number 53, Borough Station

The history of art has a less-than-stellar reputation when it comes to representing women: if women aren’t depicted as Madonna or whore, they are objectified, characterised as insane or simply bumped off. Sir John Everett Millais’ painting of Shakespeare’s heroine Ophelia manages a clean sweep of sexist clichés, showing her drowning but still sexy and submissive at the same time. Several years ago, Millais’ painting was blown up and reproduced in Borough Tube Station in London, as part of a campaign to promote the visual arts. Alice Tarbuck’s poem records her feelings on seeing the painting in this unexpected place, and can be found in her pamphlet Grid (Sad Press, £6). Tarbuck will launch Grid at the Scottish Poetry Library on 25 April.

Ophelia’s down in Borough Station, drowning, patroness of stillness, lady cold without complaint. She doesn’t look right there, damply adorning grubby tiles like some commuters’ saint. If you tapped in and took the lift down, seeking salve for the grey monotony of pain, you’d be misled, equate her watery sleeping, to the shatter-screech of body, metal, train.

It’s meant to hurt, death’s not a gentle floating, and you’re not supposed to try to do it there, where the breeze is pushed by dirty trains through tunnels and instead of clear cold currents, you’ll get diesel in your hair.