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She walks in the cold dark hour before the morning
The hour whose wounded night begins to bleed
Stands at the back of the patient queue
The silent almost sleeping few
Seeing no one and bot being seen.
Walking shoes and wrapped in working apron
Tolled in an oilcloth bag across her knees
The swaying tram assaults the morning
Blue grey steely day is dawning
Dreams the last few drag of sleep away.
Over the bridge and the writhing foul black water
Down through empty corridors of steel
Each of the blind glass walls she passes
Shows her twin sudden flashes
Which is the mirror image, which is real
Crouching gods and word and number
Accept her bone-backed homage as their due
The buckets steam like incense coils
Around the endless floor she toils
The cleansing wide sweep each day anew.
Gleaming the new washed floors is fading
There were office clocks and marking time
Night black tide is ebbed away
By cliffs of glass awash with day
She hurries from her labours still unseen
He who lies beside her does not see her
Nor does the child who once lay at her breast
The shroud of self denial covers
Eager girl and tender lover
Only the faded servant now is left.
How can it be that no one saw her drowning
How did we come to be so unaware
At what point did she cease to be her
When do we cease to look and see her
How was it no one knew she was there