Sundays too my father got up early
                        and put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
                        then with cracked hands that ached
                        from labor in the weekday weather made
                        banked fires blaze.  No one ever thanked him.

                        I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
                        When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
                        and slowly I would rise and dress,
                        fearing the chronic angers of that house,

                        Speaking indifferently to him,
                        who had driven out the cold
                        and polished my good shoes as well.
                        What did I know, what did I know
                        of love's austere and lonely offices?