Cleaning House

By Nikki Moustaki

Published June 2nd, 2006

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There’s something wicked that empowers poets cleaning their houses

Poetry loves a fresh floor, a spotless toilet, even under the rim.

There are a thousand ways to get grout white again.

A thousand ways to shine tile, to polish a sink new.

Poetry lives between the bristles of a used toothbrush,

Metaphors choke when the poet touches the feather duster:

poetry loves grime. It’s tired of living like an old washcloth,

wiping away staleness like lime from a spigot.

The garbage must be dumped, the dog washed, books alphabetized.

Help me, whatever it is that makes poems.

Whatever divine synapse clicks invisibly like a dust mote

in the darkness, gathering word upon word,

balling phrases under the bed where only the broom’s

eyelashes touch; help me whatever thing drives the scouring pad,

the dish cloth, the mop, each hand latex-gloved, dumb and callous,

the pen dormant in its shell, but clean. Sloth saves poets

the way the sea saves painters: each wave decorating a new landscape

to love, every handful of sand, original, capricious.

I know each coffee stain on the sofa is a stanza waiting to set in,

that glass-ring on the nightstand an unending orb waiting for its tenor.

I’ll just tidy up a little while poetry dies inside my sponge.

I live here among the dog hair, the mildew, the rust.