Floor Level

The Bic rolled into the dust bunnies,

a blue plastic lure behind the fins

of the radiator. I went down

on the yellowed linoleum,

and my left patella went crack—

a dry branch snapping in a dead wood.

I didn’t move. I stayed there,

feeling the grid of the floor

press its cold, geometric map

into the skin of my cap.

The heat was a hum somewhere else.

Down here, it’s just the smell

of old wax and the long, slow wait

for the blood to remember the way back up.