Porcelain Skin

Scrubbing at the grout, where mildew grows,

a faint orange line, as everyone knows.

The porcelain gleams, for half a day at least,

then the slow, familiar drip, a tiny beast.

How much water has run over this edge?

How many worries, a silent, lonely pledge?

I find a single hair, dark and curled,

clinging to the drain, in this small, tiled world.

Still damp, a reminder of what was just before.

Another person's time, then out the door.

It's all the same, the coming and the going,

this basin holding what the pipes are flowing.