Scrubbing Floors in Empty Houses

If she’s gotta get up

She’s gotta get up

And go scrub floors

In empty houses

Long lost linoleum

And hardwood

That hurts your knees

And snaps your back

She’s scared to play music

In case an owner shows up

But the owners never show up

Because it’s in that part of Scovy

Where it’s just houses

And no people

No owners
No residents

Just floors
And walls
And windows

They built all these pretty houses

For pretty people to live in

Thinking Scovy was going to become

The next Hyatt Platte

Or Fentonburg

But it didn’t work

And now there’s just houses

That nobody from town
Can afford to live in

But the realtors want them cleaned

In case anybody changes their mind
Or wins the lottery

So she gets up early

She drives to the block

Right near the airport

Thinking—

Even if they could find rich people

To live in Scoville

Who the hell would want to live

Near the airport

If they had enough money

To live somewhere else?

She's surprised at how much
Dirt and dust piles up

Without anybody
To track it in

The mirrors still get smudged

The windows still end up with marks on them

She would blame a ghost

But a house can’t be haunted

If nobody’s ever lived in it

Even still

She won’t go down
In the basements

Or up into attics

She leaves all the closet doors open

And keeps her mace nearby

Just because there’s nothing in the house to steal

Doesn’t mean there won’t be burglars or squatters

Trying to stay warm in the winter months

While she scrubs the floors

She thinks about how her mother

Wanted to live in a house just like this

They’d get in the car on a Sunday

And drive through better neighborhoods

Than the one they lived in

Talking about the kind of people

Who lived behind the iron gates

And the tall, tall fences

Her mother would let her pick out a room

By pointing at a window

Then they’d drive back home

And sit in front of the television

Trying not to get upset

About having to live in a one-bedroom

Where the lights went out every other day

And the hot water ran out

After two minutes

Her mother died when she was seventeen

--Car accident over by the bridge

She’d been on her own ever since

The sky gets dark

By the time she’s done

With the last house

She finishes up quick

Because being around the empty houses

After dark

Makes her nervous

Like she’s in some sort of zombie movie

Without the zombies

She stops at the Italian restaurant

The franchise place

Because her friend Cindy works there

On Sunday’s and Monday’s

And she’ll usually give her a discount

On anything that isn’t a special

When she walks in

The hostess tells her Cindy called out sick

Something about her leg hurting

But she remembers the two of them being friendly

And says they made too much rigatoni that day

So does she want a plate to take home?

She wants to say ‘No, thank you’

But she’s starving

So she takes the food in a to-go box

And then eats the whole meal in her car

She parks near the airport
And watches the planes come down

No rush to get home

The only thing waiting for her there

Is a dirty floor

She doesn’t have the strength

To get down

And clean