A girl's bathtub

Webs of tangled, fallen hair

Clog the drain, the metallic strainer

streaked with age, a poor gatekeeper

Murky water left rims of dirt

Obscuring the white contours

of the rectangle-sized bathtub, long enough

for a five-foot-five’s outstretched legs

The surface now,

Mottled with some leftover blobs

of undissolved conditioner,

that looks like fatty butter and

striated pink pathways marked by the

last Christmas’s bath-bomb gift

It’s a therapist’s couch,

unyielding in its firmness

a patient lover, a witness to

matters being mulled over

where thoughts trickle unrestrained

hovering and brewing like the steam

that fills the bathroom and clouds the mirror,

the mirror that saw what the bathtub

had missed, the stubborn spots,

first creases and the unsightly rashes.

A basin full of ungainly octopi arms

hanging like an old person’s loose skin

coiling and coiling,

and tripping up feet

until picked up to release a flow

of cold then hot stream

A neutral observer,

unfazed by tantrums and tears

never whispers back

but stares back,

with its faucet

cold eyes