Morgan Downie

 

i got on my knees
and smelled the new linoleum

the untouched block,
white bone, smooth as marble
and then the knife,
the steadying of the hand,
and the sureness
of the first cut.

afterwards the plated ink,
the unguent pull of the roller
smoothed against glass,
a dreaming black
to rest upon the heavy leaf
of paper unstained.

and then the press,
and then again the path
we walked, those hard stones
upon the hill, rising and rising
up to the curved blade of sky
and all above is fire.