Floor

When I had had enough of staring at the poet reading I stared at the books and when I had had enough of staring at the books I stared at the nifty bookshelves and the chocolate walls and the ceiling with its six hanging lamps and when I had had enough of staring at all that I stared at the floor. It was a most familiar floor. Not that I had never been in the bookstore before, I hadn’t, though I had been in the owner’s previous store, just around the corner, which was almost identical, with the same nifty shelving, only less of it, the same books, only fewer, the same implacable walls and high ceiling, though narrower, the same place all in all, only smaller. But I hadn’t noticed the floor there or if I had I didn’t remember. I hadn’t made a note of it or if I had I hadn't re-read it or referred to it or used it in any way or if I had I didn’t remember like I remember the neat marquetry of College Building 302 which I attempted to describe in writing, unsuccessfully, for twenty minutes during a night class two years ago; or the wide planks of my Victorian house, which I haven’t written about till now because it is the crevices between them, loaded with the debris of three centuries, which command my interest both in terms of what I excavate (dirt, crumbs, pins) and what I insert (rope, pencils and perhaps myself some day). By contrast, this floor was dull—grey-brown as opposed to the flaming orange of my floors at home. It was a sealed floor, though not with stain, with time. The grain bit down, as uncompromising as the walls. It was not polished but seemed clean. An old clean. The planks (I could imagine them being swept, I could imagine that regularly happening, I could imagine being the person sweeping, I could imagine being the broom, but this floor came from before sweeping, for me anyway, from when sweeping, though I was barely aware of it, would have been done by women who were not my mother, or women in black habits with their peripheral vision blocked by coifs or wimples or similar apparati with elusive names, women who could not be anybody’s mother) of this floor were neatly fitted, this floor was all of a piece, in a sense, there was not a huge difference between plank and next plank, there was no grand canyon of accumulated debris to breach, the floor was a flat floor with no rift valleys. This was the floor of an early classroom, when I was 4 and 5, and my eyes moved between floor and desk, which was more floor, and supply cupboard, which was recessed floor, and teacher’s table which was more floor too. Not when I was 6, because that year we had a new classroom and the colors were lighter and we were raised up. But maybe the floor of a classroom in a second school, when I was 7, 8, 9, a floor that stretched out into more floors and halls, transfixed in an amber of motes and polish, in another country, where schools still had windows, even if high up. That floor. So strange to see it again here.