The Floor I saw, in a magazine, the floor your miraculous feet deserved. Laminate like a rich dark wood to replace the carpet you hated. And I, son of a carpenter, swore I would give it to you. For days I ripped and tore, measured and sliced, until I finally fit each piece in place. Well, more or less. The floor was there, thank God, but I’d done a shoddy job. Certainly nothing worthy of your effusive gratitude nor the way you kept grinning, half teasing, half seducing, as you called me a “man’s man.” Eight years since the first plank and our floor is still hanging on. Every time you step over a gap or stumble on a warped section, it is as if you don’t even notice all the ways I have failed you. You have always understood how real love requires us to turn our heads away. I am only just now learning it should never be from shame.
About the Author: Justin Hamm is the author of four collections of poetry–Drinking Guinness With the Dead, The Inheritance, American Ephemeral, and Lessons in Ruin–as well as two poetry chapbooks and a book of photographs, Midwestern. His poems, stories, photos, and reviews have appeared in Nimrod, River Styx, Southern Indiana Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Sugar House Review, and a host of other publications. Justin is a 2022 Woody Guthrie Poet and 2014 Stanley Hanks Prize winner. His solo poetry/photography show Midwestern featured in numerous galleries in 2019 and early 2020. In 2022 he delivered a TEDx talk on poetry in the region, and in 2019 his poem “Goodbye, Sancho Panza” was studied by 50,000 students worldwide as part of the World Scholar’s Cup Curriculum.
Image Credit: Justin Hamm “No Selfies” (2023)
As It Ought To Be 