Clean Curtains

New neighbors came to the corner house at Congress
and Green streets.

The look of their clean white curtains was the same
as the rim of a nun's bonnet.

One way was an oyster pail factory, one way they
made candy, one way paper boxes, strawboard
cartons.

The warehouse trucks shook the dust of the ways
loose and the wheels whirled dust—there was
dust of hoof and wagon wheel and rubber tire—
dust of police and fire wagons—dust of the winds
that circled at midnights and noon listening to no
prayers.

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"   O   mother, I know the heart of you," I sang passing
the rim of a nun's bonnet—O white curtains—and
people clean as the prayers of Jesus here in the
faded ramshackle at Congress and Green.

Dust and the thundering trucks won—the barrages of
the street wheels and the lawless wind took their
way—was it five weeks or six the little mother,
the new neighbors, battled and then took away
the white prayers in the windows?

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