Bushwick: Latex Flat
By D. Nurkse
2001
Sadness of just-painted rooms.
We clean our tools
meticulously, as if currying horses:
the little nervous sash brush
to be combed and primped,
the fat old four-inchers
that lap up space
to be wrapped and groomed,
the ceiling rollers,
the little pencils
that cover nailheads
with oak gloss,
to be counted and packed:
camped on our dropsheets
we stare across gleaming floors
at the door and beyond it
the old city full of old rumors
of conspiracies, gunshots, market crashes:
with a little mallet
we tap our lids closed,
holding our breath, holding our lives
in suspension for a moment:
an extra drop will ruin everything.
Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2007 by D. Nurkse, whose newest book of poetry The Border Kingdom, is forthcoming from Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. Poem reprinted from Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn, ed., Julia Spicher Kasdorf & Michael Tyrrell, New York University Press, 2007, by permission of D. Nurkse.
Source: 2007