1999 Cave Canem Poetry Prize
Winner: Natasha Trethewey for Domestic Work
Judge: Rita Dove
Publisher: Graywolf Press

Domestic Work, 1937
By Natasha Threthewey

All week she's cleaned
someone else's house,
stared down her own face
in the shine of copper-
bottomed pots, polished
wood, toilets she'd pull
the lid to — that took saying

Let's make a change, girl.

But Sunday mornings are hers -
church clothes starched
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.

Domestic Work 1937 Copyright ©2000 by Natasha Trethewey. Reprinted from Domestic Work by Natasha Trethewey, with the permission of Graywolf Press.

Copyright © 1997-2005 by Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.

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