Now that they’ve taken the body,
the German women begin cleaning,
and they clean everything, walls, floors…
Why all the cleaning I wonder?
Does death leave a stain--
or shed its shadow like a viral load?
They must clean out the humors
just like in the olden days.
Cleaning is Germanic grieving.
They put their grief to work,
and the Protestant angels
who appear on the scrubbed walls
witness the rinsing of death’s last traces.