UNDER THE FLOOR

Hugh Seidman


a man wedged under the floor
hears the footfalls

feels the nail at his eye
as he lies at the soles

his sight upon the clock
through the cracks

as the unlaced shoe taps
as his creak of breath fills the dark

but he does not sleep
his pulse in the boards

for there he is the floor
where men go and are pulled

**
from Selected Poems, 1965-1995, Miami University Press