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   t h e    e l e c t r o l u x    s a l e s m a n    v i s i t s    o u r    a p a r t m e n t

--- G R E G O R Y   D J A N I K I A N


So he comes in, says he's got what we need, hoses, couplings

all you want to make this a home

sits on a crate in the middle of no furniture no rugs

just a film of dust on everything like incense or fallout

and out come his bags and brushes out come the filters and wands

he throws dirt on the floor, scatters coins tosses confetti in all the corners

says This is for the little woman and flicks the switch and the sudden vast

intake of air is something we've never heard the floor humming like an electric grid

everything unsightly sucked up as if it had never been, cobwebs on the wall

dust on the photographs of great-aunts and -uncles peering out from a desert of silence

breakages and spills undone grains of salt shattered glass in the deepest crevices

The power of technology! he shouts above the whirlwind of cleansing

skimming over the floor from wall to wall every shred every obstacle removed

surfaces so unblemished that for days after we can brush our fingers along the baseboards, sills

over the faces of every photograph without making the slightest mark.

© crossconnect, inc 1995-2006 |
published in association with the |
university of pennsylvania's kelly writers house |