Window Cleaner

Window Cleaner

A man like you
Has reasons for your ways.
Your vacant presence
Is reaped through daily buffeting.
You stand tall
Performing your careful craft -
Perfect strokes,
Water paints glass,
Each pane another masterpiece
With seldom an audience
But plenty of critics.
To them you are
Blue collar, dusty shoes
Unschooled and not worth your wages.
Once in a while, on a good day,
You bother to strike a conversation,
Startle their pug ears
With gentle intelligence.
Their interest roused,
They watch you
Systematic, meticulous
Opening a vortex of light
To their cleverly disguised filth.
Not a wrecking ball, tearing open
The side of their cave
But an archaeologist,
Scrupulously removing obstructions.
Yes, you are better than them.
When we met,
Your life was a simple integer.
One narrow shelf held your
Mementos, arranged just so.
The next shelf held your entire wardrobe
Folded with exactness.
Your fading, favorite polo shirts
And clean white tees.
White sheets smoothly fitted
To a single bed sat
Directly under straight linen curtains.
Your tidy desk drawer held
A file folder of five monthly invoices
- Your sole trappings -
Paid in cash on their due date.
You changed the oil of your spotless blue truck
Before every road trip.
You trimmed your nails
And soaped your ears daily
And shaved with ritual piety.
Clean, exactist.
You were the foreman over slobs
Who resented you
For your neat precision,
Jeered your ethic,
And envied your steadily rising earnings.
But you went home satisfied,
Appreciated by your employer.
Now you enter the house
Tired and distracted.
Eyes take in nothing,
Blank like old light bulbs.
Not grumpy, but absent.
You simply forget to stop sulking.
It doesn't occur to you
There are details to notice,
The small mercies of home.
The noise bothers you.
You are irritated by aberrations.
Your daughter may invoke momentary delight
But is quickly brushed aside.
This is no longer your domain.
You never find it just as you left it.
Although you opened your arms
To each beloved intruder,
Now you are lost, disoriented
By asymmetry and irregularities.
The artist's vision
In your belly keeps you
Plugging away on what I
Only count incidental,
Wasted calendar pages.
I see you missing, overlooking
So much fleeting fortune.
A nest egg of moments,
Falling out of pockets with holes.
I want to slap you out of
Hysterical somnambulism.
I want to plead,
We are not as perfect as you,
But we are your perfect fit
We are the ones who recognize your genius,
Who applaud your cunning,
Who cherish your determined deftness.
Share it with us, forgive us our trespasses.
Father us in the same adroit pride
With which you have always lived.

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2006