Spilled Milk

I mustn’t cry,
For she blends so beautifully with the sheen of the hot-rimmed sink.
I almost thought she was water and so I
Reached out. And found the ebbing white blending into the kilned cracks of my fingertips.

This same blank weariness of my bedskirt. Upstairs, lapping the floor with heavy sighs.
It seems it is the only thing that hasn’t changed, as the stillness of the air.
When long-forgotten footsteps hardly meet its reach.

The vacuum will draw any trace away. Dust straying toward bobby pins from when I used to dance, tucked underneath the bed.
And I don’t need them anymore. Part of me hopes I vacuum them just to hear

The rattle of space and a tiring fight. 

And I see the sun holding. Baking the sink and tickling the playful trim cold to air. And the suction
Draws the dust, and stirs the skirting to life.

It pulls with its heavy grasp until I press the calloused button to slow its whiskering cries. It left the bedskirt a crumpled disarray.
Wearing the time-stilled threading loose.
What do the wrinkles hold
Against themselves and the heat of the floor?
A cold lick of lily. A reflection

Almost like spilled milk.