The Stain on the Floor

There’s a stain on the floor

That gets cleaned up each day

Made up of spots

Light spots

Barely noticeable

Unless the light

Hits it just right

We walk over the stain

Until we get around

To wiping it away

A little soap

Some warm water

And the cloth we keep

By the sink

The stain is on the wood

Not in it

As guests sometimes remark

It’ll come up

If you scrub it just right

At first we do it in the mornings

First thing

Remove the stain

Then go about your day

After some time

When talking about the stain

And its constant reemergence

Proves boring to us

We leave it for a few hours

And take care of it

In the afternoon

Soon it stops occurring to us

To clean it up at all

And it sits there each night

Long after dinner

Erased only before bed

And eventually not even then

Why bother

Cleaning up a stain

That’ll only reappear?

Leave it where it is

A few spots

An elongated mark

Something dark

In the city

Of all that light splatter

Who cares?

Leave it there

It’s an old house

Old houses have stains

Just like the people

Who live in them

We go about our days

And our days go quickly

So much so

That we don’t notice

When the stain disappears

Did you clean it?

No, did you?

Funny

Yes, very funny

But nobody laughs

How does that something

That once persisted

Suddenly give up?

We avoid stepping on the spot

Where the stain used to be

Then we try our hardest

Not to go in the room

Where it wouldn’t be expunged

Week later, we’ve blocked off

That entire part of the house

Keeping to our rooms

And our one tiny lavatory

Even though there are

So many of us

The floors in our part of the house

Creak and give way

When we step on them

Sending us down into basements

We haven’t seen in our years

But it’s still preferable

To stepping on a spot
With no spot

We interrogate each other

Asking where the spot could have gone

Wanting to go back

Into the room

To see if it’s returned

But scared to find it gone

Or worse

Scared see it back

But bigger

And even harder

To get rid of

When the questions bring forth

No answers

We fall silent

Not wanting to hear

So much as a whisper

From the mouths

Of those we’ve been next to

For years

Cowering in our corners

We shut our doors

And lock ourselves away

Hoping the wind we hear

Will carry itself

Through every room

Finding things that won’t leave

And things

That are never

Coming back