the wooden floor
- the wooden floor
the cozy / cluttered / coffee and tea import shop / conducts its workday on a dark / creaky / wooden floor / each slim strip
scarred and stained and cracked from dropped wooden barrels / spilled drinks / boot-crushed beans / and the weight of waiting customers and piled-up days / though
the odd plank / free of distress / seems only gently / beautifully aged
until one day the floor’s dream kicks in / or so i dream / the dream of rolling back up and retiring to the woods / its strips restoring to rings / its trunk recrusting amid its fellows
while airing a faint / bracing / complex scent of its grinding / yet enlivening / working life [End Page 7]
Mark Belair works as a drummer in New York City. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Alabama Literary Review, Atlanta Review, the Cincinnati Review, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry East, and the South Carolina Review. His most recent collection is Breathing Room (2015). Previous collections include Night Watch (2013); While We’re Waiting (2013); and Walk with Me (2012). He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize three times. For more information, please visit www.markbelair.com
