THREE SATURDAY SWEEPERS

Every Saturday afternoon
they emerge from somewhere,
these sisters of darkness,
to sweep the street clean
for Saturday night
and Sunday morning.

Maybe they are a Franconian
version of Shakespeare's
weird sisters from MacBeth

but what they know
how to do is
clear all the Dreck
left by others
off the Hauptsrasse

and they have been
doing their Saturday dance
of keeping it clean
with the bristles
of their brooms
for so many centuries

you would not dare
get in their way
or tell them to stop

for the road through
the center of the village
must be kept as clean
as the top of their stoves

and if you dare step
into their way
not only will your shoes
come away caked
with something that stinks

but you may lose
the power to love
and purchase a place
in the world to come.

-Norbert Krapf