No Baths

I beg off baths

Claiming my limbs too long

to fold themselves

Inside the tub

I site discomfort and joints like glass

The sad sick truth is, really,

My mother would run a bath

Hot enough to turn her pink

I, a small child, ear pressed to the door

With the thrum of running water

Singing in my ears

Beneath that sound, once soothing

Once pure

Once whole and bright and clean

I hear my mother sobbing