Dirty Dishes

Dirty dishes in the sink
All crusty, with bits of food
Roaches everywhere..

The smell emanates from nowhere
Of a deadness, of a rotting

The endless scrubbing and cleaning
The smell of phenyl wafts across

Lets buy new curtains I would say
Lets smile and smile and smile some more

But the smell remained...
Like the smell of moth balls on an old jacket
As though trying resuscitate what little life was left
The life boats were bought out to no avail
The exterminator came
' Rip the floorboards' he says
The surfaces were never the problem

Let's start again little one
This time we'll pay attention
To the little things,
Repairing things as they break
Replacing the old with new,
Cleaning and dusting
Looking, seeing and being gentle
With what we could never before