Weekly Poem: 'Domestique'

**By Heather McHugh** Surfaces to scrape or wipe, a screwdriver to be applied to slime-encrusted soles, the spattered hallways, wadded bedding-- and in quantities astounding (in the corners, under furniture, behind the curtains) fluff and dander spread by curs the breeder called nonshedding... It's a dog's life I myself must lead, day in, day out-- with never a Sunday edition-- while they lie around on their couches like poets, and study the human condition.   "Heather McHugh":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/poetry/profiles/poet_mchugh.html was among the recipients of the so-called "Genius Award" (i.e. the 2009 MacArthur Fellowship). ("Watch her profile here.":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec09/genius_09-22.html) Her books of poetry include "The Father of Predicaments" (2001), "Hinge and Sign: Poems, 1968-1993" (1994), and "A World of Difference" (1981), among others. From 1999 to 2006 she served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and she is currently Milliman Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the University of Washington in Seattle, a post she has held since 1984.