Basin
Baths
The temperature at which skin reddens brutishly and vapour rises,
Clawing at the windows
Sitting, neck outstretched
Rubbing scented oils over the bumps of the spine
Running down
down
down
Something deep inside me stirs,
Erred, I reach for the side
Damp hands like a developing foetus
Fragile and helpless
Overwhelmed, the room spins
Like an old washing machine
Clunking eerily
Panic
Panic
Panic
What is this sensation?
Running flesh bare, down the stairs
Out the back door
Into the night—
Alone.
Alone in tranquility,
Owl’s howl and
Wolf’s solemn whistle
Low in the blackness in which
My naked body cannot be seen:
But for a light in the distance, a flashlight beckons
The fox that stole away with the chickens last summer
And the dog that ran away two months ago
Flee back into the house will I, for
The blackness will not wait long
My pale body a beacon for the sharp ending
The flashlight carries.
Blinking lightheadedness away
I find myself submerged still:
Nightmarish sights are brought to those
Who let the hot water swill in their ears,
Tremulous and quaking in their minds.
Your Hand In Mine
In the cemetery I can
Feel your hand in mine, with you
Rotting in the soil and dirt
Never felt quite so divine
Cerulean eyes, they fade more
With every day
Yes your looks, they’ve gone
But that’s not what mattered anyway
We pulled each other from
The darkness of our own minds to which
We’d become habituated
Long before our time
In the cruel light of this new world
We tremble and quake, under scrutiny
We stand,
And it’s often more than I can take
In the cemetery I can
Feel your hand in mine, at last
My stolen heart can rot in
It’s cage in which
I am held
Fast.
