Poet’s Corner – Cleaning Woman

By Lory Frankel

She goes around picking up papers.
She pulls sticks and strings from my hair;
the room is silent. She frowns, immense,
a desert of wrinkles surrounds her fierce
brows. While she works I 
cannot write my mind; she pulls it
out. My words as the ashes; 
thrown away with the buts.

Now at the mirror
she cleans with a broom,
with care blocking out
the face I have known.
She tidies my notes;
puts the pile in a can.
The room is silent.

With a hollow thump
she closes the shutters
and trundles off with her broom,
trailing her bags of trash.
My page, cleaned up, 
has been effaced.
The room is silent.

Top photo: Bigstock