Читать книгу This Carting Life - Rustum Kozain - Страница 11

Reliving

Winter breaches the vents, pushes

him back into the bath water:

a child crawling back to warmth

still brooding in last night’s bed.

He thinks of her blood, her hot

baths to soothe those aches,

blood thinning in the water.

Or, under the shower, running

red down her legs at times,

other times brown. Or when

she first shows him in the toilet

red wisps expanding in pale urine

and her blood caught like a starfish

in folds of tissue paper.

How they teeter the first time

drunk or resolved,

or both. And after sex lie and think

of nothing. Then

she sits up, reaches between her legs

to confess her early, unexpected blood.

And lifts away from the bedding

to show him the red butterfly:

her blood spread beneath their weight.

But there’s no blood now,

only the thud of calendars.

Curled in the bath, I wish

he’d bleed, colour

this pale, indifferent water.