I am become keeper of

two women
sent from
the equator
who share
the bathroom
with its
sink its
toilet and
its tub.

I don’t complain
much except for
the blood and
clots of hair
in the drain
clogging the flow
of water with
indifference.
I don’t complain
to anyone in particular,
just the backside 

of twilight and 

the spring buds
unfurling out the 
window at dawn.

They have come great
distances to be discarded,
these things, 
this biomatter;
it seems almost wasteful.

An unusual inversion: she who owns 

this windowed stone heap called home

expects me to scrub clean filth
that is not mine; basins caked
with grime and cakes of soap and so 
I am become keeper
to the housekeeper’s granddaughter.