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The Car Wash Vacuum
Kevin McDaniel
Always before new things begin,
this guy drives to a car wash. He
imagines the crumpled gas receipts,
the aluminum gum wrappers, and
dried up red coniferous air fresheners
in the backseat crevices and under
the floor mats as dampened, decayed
foliage.
The vacuum is a gale-forced wind
that sucks up all the matter and pukes
it up elsewhere. That elsewhere he
conjures as another’s car, something
for that person to rake loose, to tease
out, or to live with like Philip Dick’s
kipple. A punched-drunk hard-shelled
bug from the passenger’s floor clogs
the vacuum’s esophagus. This guy lays
his palm over the mouth to check for
that sucking whoosh, but feels…nothing.
He knows a thing this small can’t live in
a vacuum.
I currently live in Pulas-
ki, Virginia, with my wife,
2-year-old daughter, and two
Chocolate Labradors.
-Kevin
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