Unseen Poem by RIC BASTASA

something's wrong with mother always cleaning the house
and father complains for she does nothing but sweep and scrub
and dust and wipe and rub,
the floors are shiny and father does not like it
he may slide and the children too
and each may hurt the body, but mother cannot be stopped
and we complain like what father does, but mother does not
really mind, for she has become so hardheaded because father
slaps her and we make her deaf with our grumblings

until then when mother died and father cried and we felt we had all our
lives wasted, but there was one in the family who smiled
someone who thought that mother simply did what she liked best
clean the dirt, mop the floors, get all the spider's cobwebs

someone sees the beauty of mother, she's doing her chores still
but now unseen