Our Magic Toilet
From the book The Elephant Repairman
We have a magic toilet.
It makes things disappear.
Just toss them in and flip the switch
and—presto!—they’re not here.
We love our magic toilet.
It’s super fun to use.
My brother flushed his baseball bat.
My sister flushed her shoes.
The baby flushed her bottle.
I flushed my radio.
It’s crazy how things vanish
but we don’t know where they go.
Our mother flushed the sofa.
She flushed our camping tent.
That’s when I looked around and said,
“I wonder where dad went?”
— Kenn Nesbitt
Copyright © 2022. All Rights Reserved.
Reading Level: Grade 2
Topics: Poems about Friends and Family, Wacky Weirdness
Poetic Techniques: Alliteration, Hyperbole, List Poems, Narrative Poems, Repetition
About This Poem
First things first… DON’T try to flush anything down the toilet that doesn’t belong there. All you will do is clog the pipes and upset your parents when they have to pay a plumber to fix it.
That said, I remember, when I was very young, being fascinated by watching things disappear down the toilet and wondering where they went. So, I thought it would be funny to write a poem about a magical toilet that could make anything vanish; toys, furniture, maybe even the entire house! Ultimately, I settled on having dad go missing, but without being sure if he went down the toilet or not.
If you are interested in poetic techniques, you might notice that, in addition to having some obvious exaggerations in the poem, “Our Magic Toilet” is a list poem, and it includes a few alliterations such as “brother/baseball/bat” and “baby/bottle” and some repetition on the word “flushed.”
From the book The Elephant Repairman
Use This Poem
Would you like to use this poem in your classroom? Would you like permission to reprint, record, recite or broadcast this poem, or set it to music? Please click on one of the following links for permissions and reprint rights information:
