I Hate Vacuum Cleaners

I Hate Vacuum Cleaners
by M.J. DeAngelis

I hate the way they tangle me up.

The cord wraps around everything and gets stuck.
When I tell it to suck itself back in, it just lies there.
It won’t disappear.

And the sound reminds me of my mother.
Before my father finally cut the cord with her,
she’d vacuum, vacuum, vacuum.
She didn’t want me to hear her crying
( even though I was standing right there and she didn’t notice ).
She’d mouth words in an imaginary conversation.
Tears streamed down her swollen face.
She’d stop for a moment.
And I’d think maybe this is the end.
But then she’d explode into sobbing again.
And the angry vacuum cleaner
was roaring and lunging
this way and that way
beating the rug
over and over.

I hate vacuum cleaners.
I hate the way they tangle me up.

Comment: I’m usually surprised by my next piece. It comes from somewhere I wasn’t expecting and then insists on being uncovered. With this piece, my wife started vacuuming the downstairs and I noticed my uneasiness and I remembered how it was before my parents were divorced many years ago. So, I went along with it – I let it take me to my office. There, I let it out – put it out where I could see it.

Bio: M.J. De Angelis lives on the Lamprey River in Durham, New Hampshire and enjoys fly fishing. His pieces have appeared in: Penwood Review, Third Wednesday, and Sonnetwriters.com. Other work will be appearing in Chiron Review, and Lit Magazine. Although his first passion is writing poetry, he pays the bills writing software.