Dishwasher Poem by Ernest Hilbert

He washes dishes in the dawn,
Though really, still, it's dark.
The light has yet to slice through drawn
Draperies on a shark-

Shaped pizza cutter and blue-whale
Ice-cream scooper. The spoons
And forks, bright knives, ring like chain mail
In the soapy lagoon,

The arsenal of cutlery,
The spider-eggy fluff
That clings like mold to crockery,
And other hardened stuff,

The dots of dusty plum that blot
The stems that held the wine,
Like bloody sprays of those who fought
And died along a line,

A puncture in the vinyl glove
Leaks in dishwater—
And she still sleeps two floors above—
As stacked saucers totter.

In corners are shards, diamonds uncut,
Kaleidoscopic, and sauce
Across the ceiling, chips that jut
From rug and couch, all tossed

Like remnants of an old battle,
An ancient, raging rerun,
When fists made the tables rattle
And no one recalls who won.