Thursday, March 12

DOORMAT

The floor is showing through its threadbare coir
and haphazard clumps of finer threads
remind you of human hairs
collected at the barber’s or of a forest floor.

Like a Burri burlap, the feeling that survives
is in the feel of the thing: heavy, with poor
drainage. Looking, you novelize. 
You believe your true subject’s just below, hidden, 

but underneath is floorboards, and underneath that
dirt. A doormat
is one who lets the object of their affection
walk all over them. I was called that

once. Love held me under its foot.
It stomped and stomped. And I welcomed it.

(Will Schutt)