ManicDDaily

Sweeping Before Trip

Here’s a poem that I originally wrote for the Sixth Day of National Poetry Month (April 2010), a month in which I write a draft poem a day.  This one was about the urge to clean before taking a trip.  ( I am linking it now in December 2011 to Bluebell books’ prompt about Cinderella taking a tea break. )

Swept Away

Sometimes you just have to clean.
Yes, you have a plane to catch.
But you notice, even as you should be zipping up
your carry-on, specks–whole clumps–dust
that you tell yourself you just can’t bear
to come back to–but that you really just can’t bear
to leave behind.

In the moment of departure, in the grip
of tearing yourself away,
the familiar web-swathed corners call out to you;
all those crumbs below the table, their genealogies
so readily traceable; that rug that catches
every single thing; all of it holds on,
until the act of sweeping gently rocks you
across worn paths, cradles
you in your own low arc, scrapes
the home plate clean and, somehow,
sets you free.