Melted Rubber

Company is coming and the house
needs cleaning for the hostess to be seeming
all intact. She does in fact feel better
when its done and this device is one
that works to move her when one to many
weeks have passed and the miles of piles
have outlasted her will to rise
to the occaission of cleaning and still
she'd distract herself with some other obsession
her wasted time could fill miles or mountains with little
to show for all she did without the pressure
of having guests to bring all the pressure to bear
somewhere to start and then lost in the miles
of piles hours pass in the rediscovered
archives of life, the unfinished,
the way laid till there is time
or presence of mind to tackle that task
that note, that filing, that bill paying
that sorting of images, that review,
that research, that phone call, that thought
it is a time of reckoning
no shoulds, no coulds, the time now is of will
or won't it goes in the kill pile
or the do it now or next pile and after awhile
there's a need for food and coffee
and a trip to the store for preparing
the meal to be shared and returning home
a little late to be starting the meal and still
needing to vacuum and clean away the last
of the clutter which takes precedence over
prepping the decadence and half way through
the vacuuming the fringe on the rug gets caught
in the twisting spinning brush and there's
that nauseating smell that she knows all to well
means the last belt in the house has broken
the vacuum has spoken - forget it -
who were you really kidding anyway?
But progress was made this day
with the miles of piles and now
to the cooking and the emptying
of all the concerns and hassles
to make room for smiles and the reception
of guests and so the meal is in motion
and the house smells savory for the first time
in recent history and evening approaches
the warm light not highlighting the unvacuumed
after all...thank goodness it broke when it did
to break the chain of obsessing on the endless
self-centeredness of not good enough
of the multi-generational compensation
of old shame resolved, redirected
and repackaged by way of cleaning
at the expense of being available to be
human and just simply among friends.