My Beautiful Janitorial Point of Pride 

I remember this as I fly off to Europe 

in the blue middle of the night 

under the moon and white starlit sweeps of sky. 

I was a janitor, why? Nobody ever told me,

but I confess I was and not all that long ago.  

Thirty years ago, lots of victories and wild western car rides 

in the mountains before and since, books written on the dashboards, even European film festivals with me in the films, 

like where I’m flying off to tonight, but I was a janitor once. 

My supervisors worked with me on the night shift, two women 

in the overnight, overlit office building, mother and daughter, 

with NPR tote bags full of TV Guides and snacks 

and me, embarrassed by this low down job. 

 

This office building with a full unobstructed view 

even in the lower floors, across the highway 

to the hopeless apartment buildings I was a kid in. 

Where my mom said I’d never get far. 

And here I am across the street.

But that fucker, that mother was wrong. 

Because those two women, also wondering what I was doing there, 

seemed to have a feeling about me, so as they showed me 

what was expected by our higher ups in unfriendly suits 

from the end result of our nightly sweeping of hundreds of miles 

of floors in that building, also reminded me how art is everywhere, 

and for me to fucking survive those nights, bless their hearts. 

So, plug the vacuum in, turn it on, see the headlight white flash, 

aim it across the room, let it pull me across 

sweeping a line, a long, clean line across the blue carpet

fresh, pretty, and NEW—

now boy, go back to the start, one space over and do a flair, 

a flow, sweep a flourish in and join into the other line hundreds of miles of beautiful vacuum cleaner lines all night, every working night.  

My life has gone all out of order but there they are tonight outside 

these frosty jet windows, beautiful vacuum cleaner sweeps 

in the sky, now I can reach up and switch off the overhead light.