|
BATH
She baptizes in porcelain
womb, curls up, remembers
as faucets deliver
sacred lather.
The water’s warm hands
cascade her limbs. A mini-Jordan
of suds slide into the
gorge
below her navel. An
hour,
she prays. That’s all
she wants.
We learn not to knock,
plague
her with the day’s
problems before
the patient towel slips
from silver rod, a cotton
benediction.
INSIDE AN EX'S
HEAD
i'll never forget how you look naked, glossed
in my sweat…summers spinning vinyl, tongues
tossing inside marvin gaye's
ocean voice. after, i would stay there, docked
in our roux, simmering.
then i'd rise and paint
nude, dash your scribbled lines
in lilac, crimson, indigo. endless smoke
and wine, hours without rest, bodies
as meals, avoiding hunger. There was a holiness,
hallelujahs rising out of us
like steam. i miss the world
only my dusty, attic apartment
could contain. in the end,
i could only love you in relief, hang us
on yesterday's wall, feed you
from my wife's table. spin those old songs
while you bounce my son across the spread
of your lap, that altar
i refused to burn on.
|
