The Grooming

The lights are too bright for a Tuesday.

I took the tweezers from the bathroom kit

and sat on the floor with the wool across my knees.

One by one, the pills come off the weave.

Each stray thread is a debt I can actually pay,

a small knot of friction I can finally kill.

My neck aches from the angle of the lean.

In the saucer on the rug, the grey lint piles up

like the soft, shed skin of a ghost.

If I can just make the surface perfectly smooth,

maybe the rest of the week will stop catching.