X=saturday morning bath

Saturday morning bath - yours

you have a bath in your kitchen
but it's Pegwell Bay not Paris
I sit at the table and type
but it's Barstowe not Byron

The water doesn't refract your
spine into a broken straw
and my silence from the keyboard
does not flinch at all

you tell me that you now think
I cottoned on quite fast for a man
to your attention seeking ways
nothing you've said is strange so

we take a plunge and coldly spar
the washing up shall we have kids
whether our sex life skids along
I push you too hard to study

and not hard enough for song
the argument takes an hour
and is full of sad concessions
but I warm the towels on coal

and wrap to mend your bones
when you emerge into the weekend
purged exfoliated and burned
waxed smooth of burrs and guilt

flick my ash into the vacant bath
and the flakes of oxidised paper
sink so slowly like the mumbling
of an argument that is talking
in its sleep
now