The Maids | Elizabeth

tuesdays and thursdays.
tiny wire sprung cinnamon milk
chocolate woman hunted dirt:

under beds, above
window sills,
grease dots

on the cook top.
thrust
deep into the toilet’s infected bowels.

from fabric or shag,
extracted hidden detritus -
strands of untamed kink,

fingernail clippings,
sloughed dry skin.
teary-eyed smiled at

me watch
my brother spatula spanked
by the Irish nanny screaming

about his dark skin
and the devil.
never minded

slipping his 2nd grade beer can
into the outside trash. until
she got fired for drinking.

i still
try to make fried baloney
and butter onion spinach.

I can eat tender brown love
and taste a perpetrator's guilt.