Washing Windows Poem by Terry Collett

Your mother used to sit on the window
Ledge of the tenement building and
Wash the windows of each of the rooms.
She’d push back the shutters and just
Sit there with a bucket of warm water
And a cloth and wash away. You were
Always afraid she’d lean too far back
And fall out and down to the ground
Several storeys below with a heavy crash
And break bones or neck or maybe die.
But she’d just sit there her legs holding
Onto the wall beneath her and push her
Right hand holding the damp cloth
Over the glass while her left hand held
The metal bucket tight swishing the warm
Water as she moved back and forth like
Some lone trapeze artist on the high wire
Without apparent fear or knowledge of
Was going on in the street below with the
Passing of the walking dead as Father used
To say and Mrs Febrile sitting on her window
Ledge with her daughter watching gossiping
And nosing about who did what to whom
While all the while you were frightened of
Your mother slipping out the window waving
Her hands and arms as she fell to her doom.