Housekeeping
by Margot Miller © 2006
I'm cooking breakfast for
my parents and all the family.
My mother languishes in her bed while
my father fetches and carries
I organize hip-high piles of laundry
and set the others to sorting out the
Drawers and closets full of clothing,
mostly heavy sweaters,
Too many for anyone to wear
and smelling of mothballs and dust.I'm shoveling dirt out of the house
into a lead-lined dumpster.
I work in the garden,
weeding and pulling rotted bits of wood
Out of a platform protecting the water main.
I rebuild it by hand in treated wood.
The weeds and clippings are taken away
to become fertilizer
But there is still a residue left
after everything has been cleaned up.
It finds its way into an underground pipeline that goes
below the water table and into the deepest part of the sea.