In the Toilet

Old Homes

Something’s not right about the plumbing in this house,
something is not right. The cleaners stick and stick their
instruments into the clogged drains; but the pipes still
weep and sputter all night, choking
on something. I have crouched in the dark,
with my ear to the mossed surfaces, waiting
for something to burst. But even as the shower laughs
all over my breasts in the midnight heat, nothing happens
to brown the water. But you can tell, you can tell – even as
you stick your chin to your shoulder to keep the water
from laughing harder, you can tell there is that waiting
muck at the other end of the pores; that green and soft-bright
mossy longing that will not be digested. Murmurs like
the closed water of ancient childhood tubs at five,
at six, at seven and eight; in the dark bathing room
with the little light where you almost drowned
at seven and eight and nine and twelve with your little
breasts and your tiny new hair. Drowned, really drowned,
without breathing or hope; or you wouldn’t have been
here today, fighting the cool shower’s clear and
incessantly brittle sorry laughter.