Late Modernity

Her mother-in-law, who was
Always a fine home-maker,
Bites her tongue about the dust,

Or tries to, at any rate.
Sometimes eyebrows speak for you.
A nurse on a cancer ward,

Who’s been a missionary
In the bush, who’s lived in huts,
And is thirty-five years old

Already, with her first child
Often at the breast (eyebrows),
Won’t likely take housekeeping

As a major point of pride.
Her mother-in-law knows this.
Still, it’s the 1960s,

For heaven’s sake, the Space Age.
We’re not living in the bush.
Give the baby a bottle.

Clean up a bit. Pull the drapes.
Get a good vacuum cleaner.
Be a more modern woman.