Doug Roy, Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat, Cut Paper
Painting the Hallway
You come over, help us paint over the drab
olive in our hallway, the sewage brown, turn
it blank slate white. Lumps little continents on
all the walls throughout. You teach us techniques.
I move cats into the basement, exchanging them
for a rickety wooden ladder left from a former owner—
wood-stripped, red-splashed. We drink iced tea
and Sprite, Bruce Springsteen booming through
speakers in spurts, Wi-Fi wobbly I stand on top
rung forgetting my fear of heights until the long
staircase stares me down. I spend an hour on
a glossy doorframe when you tell me I need
more. I refill and blot my brush into the deep and
bristles fling a dollop onto the adjacent wall, blue
beauty. It becomes a pale mess, a bird’s nest.
You say finally. You’re making this your home.
_________________
James Croal Jackson
Review by Bruce Parker
I like the way this poem ends.