carpet

they’d stripped everything else out;

pulling the debris of half a lifetime

from the living room walls and

doling out the foraged pint glasses.

all that was left was the carpet.

he went to work with a stanley

knife, cutting through the grip

of fibres.

he kept the whole second step–

the one she’d skip over on each

descent.

she went to the kitchen door,

tearing out the patch stained

by a kir royale, clumsily made

then baked in by the warmth

of tender conversation, now lost.

they retraced a dynasty of winters

walked through, to place a shoe

sole echoed by the back door.

they dried tears on the corners,

unexplored and unworn.

he tried to ring out the unkind words

soaked into the bedroom floor.

she took care around the tinted shape

amongst the light-bleached stretch;

a silhouette, as she was then,

when she cast her shadow, waiting,

in the dim hallway light.

they split, finally, the sunken spot

where their feet had intertwined

and worn away the threads

beneath them.