Dirt Floors--11/3

Dirt Floors

You cleared your rain gutters
and told me my face was too white.
There’s not enough contrast
and I am not your complimentary color.

The way I saw it,
we were a pair of 3D glasses peering onto a screen
allowing images to converge.
I am water and I wore you down like earth,
but you receded before I could erode you enough to reveal
the soil beneath.

So wear your flannel
build houses out of sticks or stones
find a woman to keep you warmer than I,
a threadbare quilt.
I am worn thinner than paper
a few stray threads
and made up of so many scraps of pioneer dresses.

You swept up the crumbs from your kitchen floor
and rinsed out old bottles of wine for recycling.
Here is the one I made you try
and you spit out the window.
You said it tastes to much like oak trees
and the tongues of irises.
I hear you shuffle barefoot on your dirt floor cabin.
Listening, I am the glass in the dustpan.