The Cleaners

after Wislawa Szymborska

by Lynn Valentine

Some unknown people dust the world,
mop round after tragedies, offer
a clear river, a green park,
somewhere fresh to sit and think.

My Dad, a council man,
minimum wage, clearing roadside drains,
other people’s silt and shit.

I knew the name of Weil’s disease
when I was small, would worry on it,
survey Dad for a sweaty brow,  
an unlikely cough.
 
Some days he’d come back pale -

the person after the accident,  
the person after the ambulance,
the person after the police had gone,

the person who would damp
down blood, throw down sand,
lift gristle up in both his hands.