Still Scraping the Floor, by Annie Stenzel

The Floor Scrapers, by Gustave Caillebotte (France) 1875

Still Scraping the Floor
            
​Because sunlight from the window lands on the postcard where it hangs at work to hearten me when I am weary, the colours on the 4x6 inch image are now faded and untrue, though they were always tones of brown and beige, never bright colours. But my mental picture of the piece the way it looks on museum walls is faithful: the honest muscles on the worker to my right tell of his youth and years of labour; no sign yet of the softness that too much wine from that bottle on the table might add, decades down the road.  He's talking to (or at least glancing sidelong at) the equally-fit fellow working next to him; off to the left of centre is the third labourer, and my brow does furrow at the thought of how or why the workers occupy those separate spaces, different angles made by their relation to the half-scraped floor. For some who linger, breath held, before this piece in the museum, it is the muted hues, or the strange perspective of the floor that draws and holds the eye; others revel in the daring bareness of the backs and shoulders of these men—controversial exposure of the male physique at the Salon de Paris in 1875.  For me, it is the light: a light I have to think must be unique to certain crooked streets in certain quarters; this light that reaches in through floor-to-ceiling windows, catches the balcony of whimsical wrought iron; a light that to this day creeps close to admire what is beautiful.

​Annie Stenzel

Annie Stenzel was born in Illinois, but has lived on both coasts of the U.S. and on other continents at various times in her life.  Her book-length collection is The First Home Air After Absence (Big Table Publishing, 2017).  Her poems appear or are forthcoming in print and online journals in the U.S. and the U.K., from Ambit to Willawaw Journal with stops at Chestnut Review, Gargoyle, {isacoustic*}, Kestrel, Pine Hills Review, Poets Reading the News, The Lake, and Whale Road, among others. She lives within sight of the San Francisco Bay. For more, visit anniestenzel.com.