FROM THE BATHROOM
I hear her urine whisper with the water,
Her flanks shudder, warm feces
Afloat in the bowl, steaming islands--
The whirlpool, streaks
On the porcelain, the large intestine
Content as a python.
Her smells hang in the air, drift
Against her.
Showersteam, soap, that ancient thing, the brain
Drains through the skin, skin which is a million mouths
That suck and spit. with a milh'on eyes that like to be closed
To feel soft touches on their lid In China
They built sanitariums
Near waterfalls.
The fogged mirror. She is watching her face
Behind the vapor, and it is unformed,
She is quiet. Peace fragrant
As freshly washed hair.
...then she walked into the bedroom, a towel in her hand.
Each step left a damp track, the arch cut away.
"'WOMEN I KNOW WHO"
DAYS OF SUMMEI;t, 19,53
h:tbeach, the gulls, long da- s,
days
turn slowly, as if on a spit--
A thousand shoulders, a thousand thighs--
The meat of our world, and we choke on it.
'l ere I was bern
Women hung their wash on lines that webbed the alleys,
Fat women
Leaning on their windowsills with their fat elbows
Shouting gossip, curses, the names of their children
Good women
With sharp tongues and jealousies
Strong hands and loyalties.
They were my father's sisters, who took me to my first beach
That they called ' ky Beach', because the sea there looked like shit.
When we swam the filth was a silt on our skins,
They'd take us to the cottage and wash us in the sink.
The years... I empty them,
A bey turning out his pock qts .,..
And my aunt said "Wha? What s all this trap?"
String, acorns, a broken soldier.
She scrubbed me in the sink and held out my penis
She said "What's this?" and I said "My wee-wee"
She laughed, and lathered me there gently.
And we were put to bed, and on our knees repeated "Blessed
Art Thou, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb," ritual words
To the mother of their god, that pale god
Baked on a stick in the sun--
Women I know who are bronze when they are naked, bronze
But pale-breasted pale flanks and pale
About the hair, as though a darkness
Was peeled off them there as though
An awful thing had been done--
Women I know who weight their long fingers with stones
Metals bright at their wrists
Stones cut of earth
Metals squeezed of stone
Bodies of clear nakedness as of dear water
Shoulders that balance the bright orb of memory
Like a goblet, a penis
Made of clay, the blue, clay that I played with,
A small penis like with little tight
With hai rs that they d snipped from their underarms--
They showed it to me they were so pleased--
And the years dry upon you--
The leavings on your sheets
Collect like coral--
Guadalu
