Dusting by Rita Dove

This poem is about a girl, Beulah, who is now an older woman and recalling the memory of her husband. In the beginning she is mindlessly cleaning. " Under her hands scrolls and crests gleam". Her mind drifts to the day she met the boy at the fair. "What was his name, that silly boy at the fair with the rifle booth?" At first it seems she is having difficulty recalling the name of an insignificant boy that she met at the fair. "Not Michael . . . . Wavery memory". Beulah clearly remembers the fish in the bowl. "the clear bowl with one bright fish". In the final verse we see that the boy Beulah is trying to remember was her husband. "That was years before Father gave her up with her name." As a father gives his daughter away to the groom, and Beulah gave up her maiden name. It is interesting to note that the name Beulah means married, to marry, claimed as a wife. "Her name grew to mean Promise, then Desert-in-Peace." This quote refers to the promises made in wedding vows or just a promise to the future. The Desert-in-Peace, to me, signifies the end of a marriage either by death or dissolution. And then Beulah remembers his name. "Maurice". I think this is a warm poem about a slice of a woman's life, maybe five minutes while she's cleaning. It is fitting that the first line of this poem is "Every day a wilderness", because it refers to her bewilderment.