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.
She beats out the dust from the rugs rhythmically, like a metronome. 
 
 And, as with a metronome, or a heart, there’s a finite number of  beats per minute –only so many beats in a song, only so many beats in a life before the “dust” settles and we return to silence, to the earth (i.e., death).
Domestic Work 1937