Washing rugs after a breakup

There they lie, they seem so innocent
one at the mouth of every door.
Why can I only see him coming
never going, never really gone?
His footprints, boot prints, voice prints
stain the throw rugs and runner in the hall.

What's for dinner?

Stained, ground in, not washable
no way to get them clean, perhaps
I can take them to the laundromat and use
one of those huge front loaders
so I could observe his footprints

Boot prints, voice prints being purged.
Sloshing and spinning, the memories spew
like a volcano of angered suds
that submerge then drown the colors
of his ranting.

No, that will not work

Not even a super-duty front loader
deserves to be the one that milks
the memories from my household rugs.
I'll soak them in my tub
until they are wet through and through
then put on galoshes and stomp them.

First, to stomp the braided blue
that waited for him to arrive.
Wordless denials escape as bubbles
that rise and reach for edge of the tub-

“No, I haven't drin binking…”

Stomp, stomp, squish the fibers
as if they were his being, the rug
a shaggy harbinger of what he did
and didn’t do, so I will stomp
the micro-fiber red he loved.
I will soak it clean then twist
until every drop of water is released.

Drown, Drown,
I whisper to the yellow kitchen mat.
The one that smells like menthol cigarettes
beer and syrup. The one that smells
like him, like mothballs, like pain.

That one is not washable
the tub and I determine
its rubber backing not conducive
to stomping, twisting or drowning.
It floats. Shit floats.
I pull the stopper
sending it all downstream.