By the Hour

so there we were
a simple cleaning woman (as at first I thought)
and a man of letters, a well-heeled bachelor
whose chambers had gone to pot
I'd hired her in to tidy and scrub
and that she did, like a tsunami
seeing her panting after doing the tub
I begged her to rest beside me
and soon I learned
she'd concepts, words, and a clever way
well above her station
as we whiled away the rest of the day
with conversation