I tugged and pulled at the landing and stairs carpet,

threadbare, its fabric skin, hanging loosely

and unsurprisingly

it gave way easily, knowing its time was short,

revealing trapped dust of a decade’s footsteps,

up and down, occasionally falling, tumbling,

broken neck avoided by short distance

between point a and b…

The remains swept up, cleaned down,

 a vacation in a vacuum and then in the bin,

to live and decompose in a thousand years

in plastic sweat, much like the carpet I had

thrown out, seeing daylight beyond the foot

of the stairs…

Cleaned down, washed, a new line of paint

and the fitter asked, holding a hundred samples,

and a measure out of the side of his mouth,

which do you prefer?

That one is fine!

“Are you sure, it is the same as the one

rotting outside your front door in the sun”.

 Smiling, I replied, why change anything other than the scenery,

our two-handed play only knows how to tread the boards,

the lines don’t change,

and the audience has long since departed.

Ian D. Hall 2021.