You took a bath
In the boiled blood
And pathological depression
Of the body you hated.

You’d made your incisions nice and neat;
That was your irremovable style.
No chance of missing the veins
That lay beneath your skin
Like sewage works
Churning the thick, weariness
Of your existence.

It was your turquoise fingernails
That I turned my attention to
While they hauled you out
With the shower curtain.
They hung off your phalanx-fingers
With obscene prettiness.
Until your life spilled down
The crevices of your palm –
Heart, Head, Life, Fate –
And crept over the gloss paint.
All I could see was your rusted hand
And your knuckle bones.