Perhaps her only fault
was to look for that love
laid out on dry land,
a mere fragment washed in
by the lapping eyes of men
who used to probe her flesh.
At forty, there is already
something in the heat,
a sort of pale awakening,
her body missing the rain.
The skeleton now knows
how to move on its own,
dragging that sagging skin.
She strips her self of old
things dry, a rusting wire
on her brassiere holds
her memory, the tips
of her soapy fingers
groping for the steel knobs
of warm water gushing
through the contours
of her body.
They find their way
to her nipples,
where unborn sons
should have suckled,
but she only had lovers.
The foam then trickles
down her navel where
the late province komadrona
crudely snipped away
her life from mother,
drifted her off
to this new sea
of rubber,
of last night’s condom lying
exhausted on the bathroom floor,
glistening like a detached
oyster from its shell.
The steam
and her thoughts gallop
to the beat of falling water.
They heave a sigh
and try to suppress
that curdling screech.
The sound stops, and she dries her self.
Tonight, she will try to trace
that love on the lines
of another woman’s palm,
let her own tongue taste
the salt that gathered round
this other woman’s breast.
From what sea did men find
her in then? From what loss
did they bid her leave?
She will clutch
at the smallness of hips,
fill the symmetry
of the shadows—
sway.
Press her cheek against
this other woman’s
womb and find it
empty.
Tomorrow she will take a bath again.
