Domestic Work, 1937
All week she’s cleaned
Someone else’s house,
Stared down her own face
In the shine of copper
Bottomed pots, polished
Wood, toilets she’d pull
The lid to that look saying
Let’s make a change, girl.
But Sunday mornings are hers
Church clothes starched
And hanging, a record spinning
On the console, the whole house
Dancing. She raises the shades,
Washes the rooms in light,
Buckets of water, Octagon soap.
Cleanliness is next to godliness…
Windows and doors flung wide,
Curtains two-stepping
Forward and back, neck bones
Bumping in the pot, a choir
Of clothes clapping on the line.
Nearer my God to Thee…
She beats time on the rugs,
Blows dust from the broom
Like dandelion spores, each one
A wish for something better.





Related poetry:
- Cambridge, Spring 1937 At last the air fragrant, the bird’s bubbling whistle Succinct in the unknown unsettled trees: O little Charles, beside the […]...
- Nantucket Flowers through the window Lavender and yellow Changed by white curtains- Smell of cleanliness- Sunshine of late afternoon- On the […]...
- Domestic Scene The meal was o’er, the lamp was lit, The family sat in its glow; The Mother never ceased to knit, […]...
- Monday Night May 11th 1846 / Domestic Peace Why should such gloomy silence reign; And why is all the house so drear, When neither danger, sickness, pain, Nor […]...
- Work I caught rumours of some internal hearing Then you appeared with tears squeezing your eyes, Hands scrunched up like a […]...
- Last Week Oh, the new-chum went to the backblock run, But he should have gone there last week. He tramped ten miles […]...
- Woman Work I’ve got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the […]...
- Work When twenty-one I loved to dream, And was to loafing well inclined; Somehow I couldn’t get up steam To welcome […]...
- A Domestic Tragedy Clorinda met me on the way As I came from the train; Her face was anything but gay, In fact, […]...
- 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive […]...
- I dwell in Possibility I dwell in Possibility A fairer House than Prose More numerous of Windows Superior for Doors Of Chambers as the […]...
- Never Suddenly, desperately I thought, “No, never In millions of minutes Can I for one second Calm-leaving my own self Like […]...
- A House upon the Height A House upon the Height That Wagon never reached No Dead, were ever carried down No Peddler’s Cart approached Whose […]...
- The Need of Being Versed in Country Things The house had gone to bring again To the midnight sky a sunset glow. Now the chimney was all of […]...
- Sad Steps Groping back to bed after a piss I part the thick curtains, and am startled by The rapid clouds, the […]...
- Clean Curtains NEW neighbors came to the corner house at Congress and Green streets. The look of their clean white curtains was […]...
- Work chapter VII Then a ploughman said, “Speak to us of Work.” And he answered, saying: You work that you may keep pace […]...
- Do You Want Affidavits? THERE’S a hole in the bottom of the sea. Do you want affidavits? There’s a man in the moon with […]...
- The Deserted House Life and Thought have gone away Side by side, Leaving door and windows wide. Careless tenants they! All within is […]...
- On A Wedding Anniversary The sky is torn across This ragged anniversary of two Who moved for three years in tune Down the long […]...
- Dead man's clothes Growing up, I propose, Is like wearing a dead man’s clothes. Death has a way of levelling the ground. I […]...
- Halls grew darker Halls grew darker and somehow faded. Grates of windows drowned in black. Every knight, every beautiful lady Knew the tiding: […]...
- Behavior BEHAVIOR-fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself, Nature and the Soul expressed-America and freedom expressed-In it the finest […]...
- May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived […]...
- Autumn Whoever has no house now will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone Will sit, read, write long […]...
- These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are […]...
- Chicken's claw by a dank and ancient coffin In the gaunt and gloomy hall Alone and sighing deeply Crouched the sorriest crone […]...
- Name His name has been ghosted over the fence, Leaving an alias, burn, prison clothes. I’m half the man, he says, […]...
- The Liars (March, 1919)A LIAR goes in fine clothes. A liar goes in rags. A liar is a liar, clothes or no […]...
- Work And Joy Each day I live I thank the Lord I do the work I love; And in it find a rich […]...
- What Work Is We stand in the rain in a long line Waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You know what work […]...
- Circles of Doors I LOVE him, I love him, ran the patter of her lips And she formed his name on her tongue […]...
- The Grave Of The Kitchen Mouse The stone says “Coors” The gay carpet says “Camels” Spears of dried grass The little sticks the children gathered The […]...
- The Day's Work We now, held in captivity, Spring to our bondage nor grieve See now, how it is blesseder, Brothers, to give […]...
- Work Let me but do my work from day to day, In field or forest, at the desk or loom, In […]...
- Work Gangs BOX cars run by a mile long. And I wonder what they say to each other When they stop a […]...
- Work And Contemplation The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarole; She thinketh of her song, upon the whole, […]...
- Work and Play The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer, A blue-dark knot of glittering voltage, A whiplash swimmer, a fish […]...
- A Work Of Artifice The bonsai tree In the attractive pot Could have grown eighty feet tall On the side of a mountain Till […]...
- On No Work Of Words On no work of words now for three lean months in the bloody Belly of the rich year and the […]...