Stephen Danos
Spring Cleaning
I crawl into a vacuum for a week | to perfect its noise | bloodcurdle operetta | dustbuster surges | every shower drain clogs | with hairballs shaped | like slaps in the face | keeping a domestic space clear | of dirty launderings | the laundry repeating its rinse | as a domicile you’re inhabitable | 75 percent water retention | a flooded basement | our vinyl records become lily pads | when you quote sitcoms instead of telling me | how you really feel | your words congeal | like balsamic vinaigrette stored in the fridge | poems are not where you start | but how you tuck the bed sheets | and squirm
Stephen Danos is author of a poetry chapbook, Playhouse State (H_NGM_N BKS, 2012). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 1913, Bateau, Columbia Poetry Review, Court Green, Forklift Ohio, Interrupture, iO, RealPoetik, Transom, and elsewhere. He serves as an Assistant Editor for YesYes Books and is Editor-in-Chief of the online journal Pinwheel. He lives in Seattle.