Sky Nails

That first day, to break me in,
my hardened comrades
sent me scampering like a marmoset
from the topmost parapet

to the foreman’s hut
for a bag of sky nails.
The foreman wondered which precise
shade of blue I had in mind.

It’s still sky nails I need today
with their faint threads
and unbreakable heads

that will nail anything
to nothing
and make it stay. 

(From Sky Nails: Poems 1979-1997, 2000)