Spring Cleaning

Wayne Scheer

such a beautiful spring day
perfect time
to air out
my old vocabulary
wrinkled from winter wear

so i piled my words
into a basket
and washed them
in the stream
that runs in back of my property

i beat them on a rock
to remove misspellings
and put them through
an old-fashioned wringer
i bought at a garage sale

i hung them
up to dry in the sun
cleansed them of cliches
until each syllable
smelled like springtime

i folded each word neatly
arranging them carefully
and put them away
for when the sun didn´t shine
as bright as today

and I needed to clothe myself
in fresh images