| Rituals I always felt uneasy when mother washed her hair. Blue eyes sealed tight as jars, Head a batch of suds, like foam on the beach in March, She knelt bare-breasted on the green kitchen chair, While I poured, dutifully, pans of warm water Down her white neck, and hair. Or take that day I went fishing on my own. What trout could resist my worm, Wriggling like the tongue of a red-lipped whore? I gripped its gills; wrapped the gut around my wrist And yanked. The fish went limp. I laughed outloud at the blue sky. Copyright (c) 2000 by Douglas Eichhorn << index >> |