She calls me for bath time,
it’s Sunday night,
the smell of Vosene won’t wait.
I will not face the cabinet mirror.

A pier slumps, soaks water
into fragile stilts
while a Houdini wannabe escapes
from a chamber in the main hall.

Somewhere there is applause.

She offers to come in and wash my
hair; I decline, swish my voice into splashes.
To her I am small, unthreatening.
There is no need for alarm

but she doesn’t know
that I was already poisoned,
that my handwashed bras
smell of sour milk.