bath salts
single malt
a mouth of candles crown
                        the tub
                  the body
                     from spilling out
             into the cold surround

the brimming sill
    capsize the moat
         foam disgorges in a luppy spawn...

doff your gown
        evacuate
           your own company ?
pour sacredly
to drown
                  
                                        ­                 - 'Chin-chin'

My muse is fickle at times,
Nagging me when I'm busy
Doing the real world,
Taking a bubble bath when I need her most...

I used to wish I had a reason to feel so sad.
Maybe a death in the family or a traumatic injury, morbid as it sounds.
A reason to feel scared, and lost, and all at once a child begging for someone else to takeover for a while.
Crying in the bath is such a cliche but when you're underwater no one can ask what's wrong and be disappointed by the answer.
I don’t have a good enough reason to be sad, I’m only 23 and have an entire life to live but I feel like this is gonna be it, and every week is another long week and every day drags like it will never end.
I feel like I should talk to someone but I’m not sad enough, or I’m not rich enough, or I’m not desperate enough.
People say life finds a way and that it will all sort itself out, but right now in this bath it’s just me and my fears so life can wait a while.

Warming Her Pearls
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Warming her pearls, her *******
gleam like constellations.
Her belly is a bit rotund ...
she might have stepped out of a Rubens.

Published by Erosha, The Eclectic Muse, Muse Apprentice Guild, Nisqually Delta Review, Erbacce, Poetry Life & Times and Brief Poems. Keywords/Tags: warming, pearls, bath, *******, constellations, belly, rotund, Rubens, mrbsex, body, art, painting, ******, erotica, ****, ******, naked, flesh

the effulgent sun
dipping everyday in the
river of darkness.
what lose, burning him as fire?
what blame, he bathing away?

Back in January seeds started flowing
From the balcony.

On Sunday we read
The poems of the deaf and
Watched the matches stumble
Drunkenly through the darkness.

In March my hips began to
Fill out like my mother’s.

A monsoon of bullet ants
Waged war along the perimeter of the bath.
I squashed three under my thumb.
Hide, I told them. I have dropped mercy off the edge of the hanging bridge.

In May the stars were soft,
The ants came back to bite me in my sleep.

I tried to clasp your nose to keep you warm
But all the heat had flown from our bodies.
Sacrifices were made along the way.
The ants, admittedly, least among them.

The bath I drew, artificially pink
From the indulgent purchase I made
My naked body submerged in warmth
Into my mind I shall wade

I study my physical being
Every peak, cliff, and canyon
Sensation erupts from within
A lone soldier stands at attention

My mind wanders to lovers lost
The temptation reaches a fever
Hard breaths, an inner heat
Hold on tight as I pull the lever

My back arches, my toes curl
A wet gasp, then a quiet scream
My head dizzy in the aftermath
As I glance at what I now must clean