Your Moroccan rugs lie in an otherwise empty, cavernous space.
You don’t sit on them for fear they will break.
And then what would you sit on?

The Zemmour carpets are modern,
I can see that in the embroidery.
Patterns boast not of the passage of time but of the way time passes through them.

You bought them from a man who wears a red hat and speaks Arabic.
“Morocco has one of the few natural indigo dyes in the world,” he says, in his own tongue.
He holds a match to one of the carpets; it fails to ignite the wool.

Every morning, you hold a cigarette lighter up to test the fabric’s purity.
Then one day your shoelaces creep into the intricate design of the rugs,
The way roots of neighboring trees stretch together in permanent embrace.

You are made of those fibers that are slow to burn, some not burning at all.