Thirteen Ways of Looking at Zero-Based Housecleaning

Apologies to William Carlos Williams

          1.

Burn down the house.

Be certain it’s your house.

Don’t rush to save the thing 

you said you would save.

         2.

Empty one room.

Return only what you love or need.

Don’t be alarmed

by what you neither love nor need.

          3.

Buy a shipping container.

Move into it.

Ship yourself 

far, far away.

         4.

Buy a house 

on unstable ground.

After the deluge

clean with a bulldozer.

          5.

Marry a farmer.

Move to Nebraska.

Build a hay bale house.

Buy a herd of hungry cows.

          6.

Empty one room.

Sit cross-legged 

on the floor.

Stay put.

        7.

Empty one room.

Fill a bucket with hot water.

Quit moping.

Start mopping.

          8.

Rethink the words,

“Clean” and  “ house.”

          9.

Divorce the farmer.

Find a neat freak.

Get married.

Move to Canada.

          10.

Live in squalor.

Get cats.

          11.

Borrow Jocasta’s brooches.

Put out your eyes.

          12.

Spray paint the filthy sink

 and all your junk white.

Call it an “installation.”

          13.

Turn your home into an aviary.

Release thirteen blackbirds.