Linoleum

Linoleum
10-11-13


We lay it on concrete slabs, under prisoners,
the contagious old, the supplicant poor;
under nameless others we keep
without holding; under all
who walk between stations in dim light,
who clutch their heads in hallways and cry out,
who count the tiles and explain to someone
why they must eat, why they need a card,
why their life is without a ground.

It papers the floors of insurance companies. 
It tessellates the dining rooms of double-wides.
It silences the rubber-soled shoes
of government workers; in the windowless rooms
of the Pentagon it keeps blood secrets.
Up and down Manhattan Island
melancholy expatriates
clean it twice daily in subways.
It teaches us one-point perspective.

Like us it is never single.
Like us it wears out.
Like us it will be replaced.
Like us it endures.