the parquet floor

oak laid in chevrons, each block the length of a hand. the pattern points two ways at once and so resolves to neither; you stand on it and feel mildly forwarded.

it was waxed last on a tuesday in october by someone who hummed through the work. the hum is gone; the wax remains. dancing has happened here twice that anyone admits to, both in the same year and neither well. the footsteps of that night are still legible to whoever knows how to read a floor.

field-note · take off your shoes. the floor will tell you which way it was first laid; you will feel a slight pull along the long grain.

it abuts the skirting at every wall; it gives way at the doors to the threshold strips; below it run the older floorboards.