WEEKLY CLEANING

All of the shades of the house were drawn,
all of the neighborhood’s windows shuttered,
before the great door of Thursday could be opened
in all its glory.
And then they erased my grandfather’s contrite corpse
the sulphuric, the naphthalene, Abraham’s steps a portent
of my mother’s slippered progress through the rooms,
polishing the seven arms of the candelabra,
bringing order to the flatware for milk and for meat,
frying the foods of exodus and abundance
while outside was a tumult of inflamed mulattas
the street overflowing with the triple flame of the bongo
and three lovely Cubans, their cheeks quivering, swayed
     to the rhythm of a song
while my mother straightened the mirrors for once and all.