I Am In The Bath


I am in the bath
Hot water pouring in the new bath salt gift
Lavender and rose petals,
Salt.
The lavender from the older lady without children whose man
Couldn’t stand her birds
Strung them like beads and strangled them.

Assault.

The rose petals from the mom whose professor [x)} left her when she conceived a son.

Salt
Pillars that bind us
Looking back
Bereft of all that flows
Ice 9, Ice 9

Pillars, that we are.

At dinner, before the bath, the one daughter gave advice of how to deal with a loser father
To the one daughter whose dad is an ass.
Pillars of marble,
A serving man,
Black and tan twenty ounce beers to soften the blows

“Why do you drink”- the young one asks…
“Because the world is awful and we must numb ourselves…”
The older one says.

I am reminded of love.
I say, “we are not always this jaded. It is a Monday, can I tell you of my new boyfriend…”
“No”
I continue anyway, used to these things.

Forks chiming, the sharpness of knives,
The dullness of alcohol that makes me want another.

I joked to him I would have 5 more…
“Can we have 5 more,” and he said
“as you wish”
knowing we are both fixed, knowing that my eggs are rotten, useless and contained,
knowing that a snip and knot keep things from blasting into each other at 45.

It is because we know how to love we lie.

I am in the salt
Water, lavender, rose petals
Everywhere nature arrested

Everywhere,
Sodium, chloride
Ionic bonds
Pulling me from myself leaving me the
Water,
The pillar,
The salt.