Cleaning Woman
She bends for hours,
with bucket and bristle brush,
into the task of scouring
the kitchen’s linoleum floor,
and squeezes under the bed with hand
vacuum, sucks the fluff into its bag,
picks filth out of the parlor rug,
scrubs the tub, the toilet and the sink,
It’s not as if she owns the place.
And she lives alone since her boyfriend
walked out, seldom has people over,
not even what remains of her family.
But there’s something instinctive
in her reaction to a stain, a cobweb,
a spill, even a gathering of dust motes.
Cleanliness is next to godliness
And she has no
control over the godliness.
So every moment spent within these walls
is an insult to the laws
of neatness if she didn’t act. "You're
too anal,” her ex always said. But she
sees herself as arms and hands, elbows
and shoulders, and knees, especially knees.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Birmingham Arts Journal, La Presa and Shot Glass Journal.
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