The Vacuum

The house is so quiet now

The vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet,

Its bag limp as a stopped lung, its mouth

Grinning into the floor, maybe at my

Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth.

I’ve lived this way long enough,

But when my old woman died her soul

Went into that vacuum cleaner, and I can’t bear

To see the bag swell like a belly, eating the dust

And the woolen mice, and begin to howl

Because there is old filth everywhere

She used to crawl, in the corner and under the stair.

I know now how life is cheap as dirt,

And still the hungry, angry heart

Hangs on and howls, biting at air.

Howard Nemerov was born on February 29th, 1920 in New York. He died of cancer at his home in University City, Missouri on July 5th 1991.