This is a poem which I received inside a bag of coffee. I cannot escape the character of Apollonia Chalee – wise beyond what her rational employers might choose to believe.
Apollonia Chalee
by John Canady
Maid
Mrs. Fisher’s superstitious. She
believes machines clean better than
human hands. She scolds me when
I miss an opportunity
to haul her caterwauling vacuum
room to room, as if my broom
might dirty her linoleum.
Mrs. Fisher still insists her new
electric washer’s quicker than
a tub and mangle, though I mopped
all day last Tuesday when it chose
to spew soap suds and dirty water
down the stairs. I tell her discontented
spirits live in these machines, but
Mrs. Fisher twists her husband’s arm
to buy more gadgets from the catalogs
Sears sends her. Mr. Fisher is
a scientist. A scientist
I think should know a little better
than to let his wife invite|
devils in metal skins into his home.
Appolonia Chalee grew up near Los Alamos and worked as a maid during WWII for families of scientists involved in the Manhattan Project.
From Critical Assembly