Title borrowed from REM. I hope they don’t mind.

I can’t be the only one 

Who reaches for a mop when the news says that the world is ending

All month my floors have been covered in snowmelt. I’ve had no motivation to clean 

Drop a few bombs and whoosh my house is spotless 

Corners swept, floors shiny.

I’ve been here before, when the smoke rose from where the towers once stood 

All I could do was fold the laundry 

Something about the sorting of the socks

Brought me back to calm

In a world gone mad, it was all that mattered 

Those neat piles of underwear, towels, pj’s, what was mine, his, the baby’s. Knowing how they’d fit into their respective drawers upstairs 

In our house

Where the lights were on, the water clean 

I do not know if today

is the beginning of the end of the world. 

But my floors are clean. 

And I

feel

fine.