Underfoot Pattern

My friend, she asked about my kitchen floor.

'What's the pattern like?' she said, then nothing more.

And I, who walk across it, every day I live,

could not for a moment accurately give

a true account. Beige, yes. Specks, some brown.

And something vaguely floral, looking down.

But the shape of the flower? The way it repeats?

Is it a grid, or some organic feat?

I stood and stared, a full three minutes there,

at that linoleum, worn and beyond repair.

One corner, where a scuff mark held its ground,

must be a daisy, or a rose, or just a mound

of nothing, really. Just the dull grey blur

I never notice. A constant, unobserved stir.