The best cleanings leave debris -
logs and lawnchairs washing down the street,
the squeal of vacuum cleaners on all sides,
tree boughs picked of toothpicks on the ground,
a power wash at midnight on the sidings...
all sounds have been subsumed, to this,
even the moaning trains are taken out of service
replaced by trains that seethe from other worlds,
with jets released from deep inside the earth
that make the branches channel ocean monsters,
rocking, flailing, screaming, retreating but refusing to yield,
their trunks in a lumbering dance, releasing
leaves to cascade like butterflies to heaven
or chase each other along the lawns
or get glued like eyes to picture windows
or costumed like paper-mache on top of cars,
all to some large sound...
Culverts roar, crickets octaves above...
The wind is like a tea kettle, the rain like bacon frying,
soon they'll come in teams from kitchens in candle-light
and armies of solitary generators will turn on
and sirens running late will chase a world down
unloosened from its bounds.
