how to scrub the kitchen floor

They say things come easier in pairs:

Body parts, marriages, games.

Even those that do not require

Symmetry. But when it comes to

Cleaning the kitchen floor,

I prefer one hand, particularly

The right. Some distractions

Are worth tending to.

And there is no use

Ignoring any of them.

We only have this moment

To imprison the freedom

Of our migrant knowledge.

The left has just to be

As preoccupied as the other.

Like every young, troubled lover’s

Solution: Cut him some slack.

Cut her some flowers.

But despite the scattering of salt,

Pepper, onion skin and oil,

The floor is a guarded wisdom:

Love becomes stranger

To those who think

They know it too well.

I may have no dialect, no gift

As enduring as marble or linoleum

But I know of the hundred peso bill

Underneath the stove. Its worth,

Its apparent, minuscule loss

In a purse or leather wallet.

I will keep mum about it.

And this Saturday, when I scrub

The kitchen floor with a dirtied

Sponge, I will reach for the money,

My body an inch from the floor,

Getting closer, almost like in worship,

In surrender or in perverted delight,

My other hand void of anything

So as to clutch my chest with

And feel my heart beating fast.