Ruben Borg

Fingerprints

I’ve started leaving fingerprints
on purpose—on the good glass,
on the window, on the door of
the drinks cabinet; little maps
of where I was so no one can say,
when all is done and dusted,
that I never touched a nice thing.

On the row of Murano paperweights;
on the ox and the ass and the three
kings—ninety euros
for the complete set. Forty
for this delicate bird,
patron saint to every thwarted impulse. 

You can price a thing like that by lifting it.
I practice the art at home: novelty mugs,
the phone, one time a sleeping cat

that didn’t even stir. 

The sun is at the fourth shelf:
the floor
is swept, the sand buried
in a drawer with rubber bands and receipts.
At the window a bird keeps pecking
at the glass, working
the same spot over and over.
The mind is elsewhere

the hands are stowed away in pockets
where they’ve been living all winter,
the shop warm (or warming),
the bird still priced at forty.

A magpie takes the brightest thing
it can lift and buries it. I want to be
trusted, finally, with something fragile
or expensive. I’ve never dropped
anything on purpose.

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Ruben Borg lives in Jerusalem, where he teaches literature at the Hebrew University. He has published books and essays on James Joyce, Flann O’Brien, Samuel Beckett and early modernist film. His poetry explores passivity, materiality and domestic life. His poem "Satellite" won the IHLR PhotoFinish prize in 2026.