Bath Water

In the bath water, a smear of blood
moves up like a red slither.
It wafts and stretches
like smoke. The faucet drips and as it drips,
rain in the gutter outside slips
through a break at the joint,
falls three storeys and
drops its load on concrete.

Then the water twists as it slides off
the path into the drenched earth and
the night outside is an open mouth
holding the weight of the earth
on its tongue. The bathroom
is a bright box in which

young girls imagine. Sometimes they are princesses
-- and if they're black, I hear them tell it
as African princesses -- and if they're white,
they forget their race and otherwise,
I don't know. Then they
imagine jungles of
swelling physicality:

veins, hair, tunnel, brain.
And so I reside in their dream box
observing from the distance
of post-adolescence
steamy sweat that pools and dots
every surface:

mirror, seat, tile,
skin, lip, eye.

Copyright Louise Robertson