I'm In Love With My Hoover

John Oughton
From:   Counting Out the Millennium. San Antonio, Texas: Pecan Grove Press, 1997.
Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Today I declared my love at last
To my Hoover: plugged her in,
Lay down beside her on the run,
Touched her power switch with my tongue
And let myself go in the sweet rush
Of her indrawing air.

I love the way she empties the dustfilled corners of my life.
She vanishes the rejection slips,
failed poems, duplicate bills
that fill my mail. I always take her
now when the doorbell rings.
A pimply boy selling chocolate bars
To benefit his school: I hovered him up.
Another salesman, this time for his version
Of the Word of the Lord. Hoovered him too.
My whole family - Hoovered! No more long
Distance calls, Christmas gifts, guilt.
I hovered off my mustache, then my whole face.
Sweet vacuum of anonymity.
Is she my real mother? I'll only know
when I hoover the rest of me
into the busy peace at the center
of her cyclone song.

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6

John Oughton's works copyright © to the author.