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Life's a banquet, his son had to beam, / and most sons of bitches are starving.
Before the end he came to sell us a hoover.
We think it's the most powerful
was his line
but I didn't believe him truly
excited by dust.
Politely my mother didn't buy
and we heard his boss yell down the phone.
As a kid, I'd watched him direct Mame in a drill hall,
force bonhomie from stilted day jobbers, repeating till perfect.
Life's a banquet, his son had to beam,
and most sons of bitches are starving.
Now an agnostic magician
on our big green carpet,
he strapped a black handkerchief
to the plastic nozzle;
did fifty back and forths.
The trick failed:
we saw no jaw-dropping amount
of grey particles amassed on the cloth.
(He'd forgotten to toe down the pedal
that should have sealed it.)
Later we heard
he clamped a nozzle
to the exhaust
and let thin grime
blow over the upholstery.
Starving son of a bitch.
Down went the pedal
and more grey particles
than you ever saw
hid him completely
behind a windscreen.
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