The claw foot tub clenches
the floor whenever I twist
the handle hot, scouring the bone
tiles and filthy basin belly.
Droplets spray and pepper the flesh
— and that’s just the curtain of skin
dancing on its meat hooks, absorbing
the stream, but perpetually unclean.
I don’t understand why the blood
doesn’t wash out; why it molds so much.
Maybe something ill spills
from the green gums of that open-mouthed
shower head, spraying its sickness.
Or perhaps it’s just my plumbing.
