98poems/sweeping

I hear the neighbor
sweeping her walk,
an industrious woman
with a penchant for vacuuming.
She likes to talk about cleaners,
which she refers to as products.
She is equally committed
to appliances.
I see her going at
her week-old truck
with a shop vac,
polishing the car
with an electric gizmo.
We first met when she came
to borrow electricity
the night she moved in,
so she could vacuum in the dark.
Like Eudora Welty’s character
who goes to the neighbor’s
to borrow fire.
It got us off to a difficult start,
preferring, as I do,
contemplation to cleaning
at that time of night.

4/17/98