She walks in the cold dark hour before the morning The hour whose wounded night begins to bleed Stands at the back of the patient queue The silent almost sleeping few Seeing no one and bot being seen. Walking shoes and wrapped in working apron Tolled in an oilcloth bag across her knees The swaying tram assaults the morning Blue grey steely day is dawning Dreams the last few drag of sleep away. Over the bridge and the writhing foul black water Down through empty corridors of steel Each of the blind glass walls she passes Shows her twin sudden flashes Which is the mirror image, which is real Crouching gods and word and number Accept her bone-backed homage as their due The buckets steam like incense coils Around the endless floor she toils The cleansing wide sweep each day anew. Gleaming the new washed floors is fading There were office clocks and marking time Night black tide is ebbed away By cliffs of glass awash with day She hurries from her labours still unseen He who lies beside her does not see her Nor does the child who once lay at her breast The shroud of self denial covers Eager girl and tender lover Only the faded servant now is left. How can it be that no one saw her drowning How did we come to be so unaware At what point did she cease to be her When do we cease to look and see her How was it no one knew she was there