It is too early, or too late, and
you are scrubbing your underwear
in the bathroom sink.
The light is white, and cold, and
the water is pink, and cold, and
your fingers are stiff, and cold.
Ice water and hand soap,
the tried and true recipe
for unset bloodstains.
It’s unsettling something else, too;
something coming undone in your chest
and pushing your lungs into
your throat. A Gordian knot
that loosens and loops
until you are so tangled
you lay down and hold still,
the better to swallow your frustration
my dear. It is shame, perhaps,
or shame by another name.
There is this thought
that turning your hands
into blunt instruments
by freezing the blood in your veins
will keep it from seeping
hot and sticky and clotting
like your frustration
in your hair and your throat,
and you just want
to be clean. By morning
your fingers will bend again,
but there will always be
a faint stain, a pink ghost
that you cannot scrub out.
A tiny haunting,
a sigh on laundry days.
But there’s no use crying
over spilled milk, or blood,
as the case may be.
Only more threads to pick at,
more low and high pressure
fronts moving through you;
lightning in the roots
of your teeth, acid rain
being used as bleach.
