The floor is porous

as language, scrub.

I am too busy toiling

in our living

room to notice

The keeping out,

The keeping clean,

The keeping up,

The keeping on

I miss the thrilling trill

of the chickadee, the arrival

of the Plieades, the mass

salamander migration down

the road. Evenly spaced piles

scatter, scraps

of letters stray

from envelopes.

I feel the short-lived

arrangements of the need. I feel

the horror of the need’s absence. I fear

the fled domestic space.

The keeping out,

The keeping clean,

The keeping up,

The keeping on

Through the window: one who cares

for babies and elders, others, herself,

tends the linoleum giving

an eye each day to its condition.

She plants a hedge

of pussy willow for the white-tailed

deer, deflects them from her hostas

which then bloom. Determined

 to care for the place we made

 and attempt to keep clean. Determined to care

for the place we attempt to keep. The white ash broom,

graceful in the entry,

like a prop, or a weapon, or a cane.