By Joan Rene Goldberg

My mother demonstrated how to flirt
with the vacuum cleaner salesman

I studied an ironed shirt
and swell fitted pants

When he spoke I followed the movement
Of his buttoned neck between his collar bones

He unwound the cord found an outlet
Suction, we laughed one time

The salesman's house
her parked car

My little finger pressed the bell
and had to open the door

The musculature of a man's arms
can bar the unforeseen

The mold of his wife's shoes
imprinted on a floor mat

This impression of an object
was what I could have focused on

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