Accomplished floors
Today is already born,
A motionless rehearsal of curtains rolling and new mornings
dictates in me the texture of the day:
bed sheets, toothbrush, running gear.
With a slick manoeuvre,
The fear you command in me
in the first hours of light,
Tarnishes, of certainty, the sun.
Like oil spilled on kitchen floors
You require of me to fly or fight
But oil is hard to wash away.
The routine I do or learnt how to
Is a dance that I practice every day,
It flows like clouds over brewing skies:
Dull, unseen, unhelpful, in wait
Like water poured on that oil stain.
Some molecules are trapped
Varnishing the surface that they touch,
Some others expand,
Reaching out to extreme corners,
Polluting away.
Did I inherit that oil stain
Or is just bad luck and tomorrow I'll be OK?
Hour after hour, day by day,
I riddle my mind with little games
And finishing lines:
Darker days in winter, longer in July,
In between
Swans will come to the pond to mate,
And the weeks will follow quietly the same,
Sundays are for take-outs,
Wednesday are for writing and home-cooking,
My mother calls every night at eight
And I have nothing interesting to say.
Anger is the benchmark of the volatility
Of my trade,
A silent, frigid rage,
Frozen,
For in this stillness time is a succulent
And it's content with whatever I can pour,
It won't demand, ask or need
For time only observes, wraps and spills.
So I scrub.
I scrub hard, I scrub deep, I scrub bored
On all the surfaces I see oil stains,
Until my fingers are wrinkled,
Dried and of more time drained,
Until that chase that time itself presents
To one feeble morning of success
Looks more like polished quarters
accomplished floors
Less frightening days.
By ©Roberto C. Salvador 2021
