practical purpose? Paintings, plants, tablecloths, cushions, fairy-lights and ornaments are not needed, but we have these things because they make our homes nicer to live in. So, if this family has a plant – a very healthy, well-tended plant – they must want their home to be nice to live in too. Bishop asks why they have a little decorative table: ‘Why the taboret?’ What really puzzles her is the delicate, home-made tablecloth, which could not possibly stay clean in this place: ‘Why, oh why, the doily?’ She describes the stitching on it: ‘Embroidered in daisy stitch/ with marguerites’ It is, predictably, filthy: ‘and heavy with grey crochet.’
In stanza six Bishop realises she has judged the family too hastily, and that ‘Somebody embroidered the doily’, meaning there is a person in this family who is doing their best to make this humble home look nicer. This same person waters the plant, although Bishop drolly adds ‘or oils it’, maybe to prevent the poem becoming too sentimental. Someone even tries to arrange the cans of oil nicely: ‘so that they softly say:/ ESSO— SO—SO—SO/ to high-strung automobiles.’ There is something very touching about these attempts to make such a grim place look homely. Most readers would assume that somebody is the mother, and that it is her feminine touches that soften this harsh place. It is hard not to equate this assumption with Bishop’s own loss, and this makes the last line all the more touching: ‘Somebody loves us all.’ Bishop seems to find comfort and solace in the maternal love she has glimpsed in this place. The poem has progressed from a disdainful ‘Oh, but it is dirty!’ to an epiphany, the universal truth that ‘Somebody loves us all.’
