Floors Poem by Michael Sharkey

With no pretentiousness they bear us.
It is no concern of theirs what we propose to do,

or do. They stand us,
mimic earth's pull, hold us to it.

Flat rejections do not trouble them;
indifference cuts no ice.

They are not insolent. Above us,
in tall buildings full of sorrow, take their chances

in between us, like the days stripped from the Calendar
when time is made redundant,

or below us, like the poor.
They bear the brunt.

Words in every tongue for lowness
bring them down to earth,
where farms took root, and empires grew.

Tents in deserts have them,
nomads make them where they pause.

In colonies, the bullocks' blood and flax-seed oil-compacted
soil made do,

till dirt floors sunk with scouring
till the doorsteps were above,
gave way to carpeted upmarket floors
japanned around the border,
marbled, flagged or tiled mosaic levels
hung on piles of cash.

Floors are epic's doggerel,
horizontal dumb graffiti-scarred memorials
that tell us where we stand.