The Army Invisible

No 1 son on the picket line supporting university staff.  The Tres Cosas (Three Things) campaign, though, focuses on cleaners and other ancillary staff's demands for sick pay, holiday pay and pensions. This poem was part of my sponsored sonnet fund-raiser which raised £1500 for the campaign a few years ago.
 
We’re the army invisible. We come
When you’re asleep or half awake to clean
Your rooms and corridors, wipe off obscene
Graffiti, swill away the leavings of some
Celebration we would not be party to
Or sweep away the paper trail of notes
You didn’t notice that you’d lost. Hang coats
Back onto hooks, try to make Room 42
Take on a semblance of the sort of place
Where learning might go on. We’ve learned a lot
About your Higher Education: not
To expect too much of learned faces
Who can find a hundred reasons not to give

The small amounts your army needs to live.