After Sleeping in the Bathtub for Two Hours
My fingers
are apricots and prunes.
You should hold my hand and flatten the skin
on my wrinkled palm, where my lifeline
has suddenly
been multiplied by two.
This is a cautionary tale, so go get a friend,
and I will wait here,
listening to the water whistle down the drain,
seducing the pipes
with promises of lukewarm intimacy, filling them up
like butter between two pieces of swirled rye bread, the bathwater
working towards the drain. Bring sandwiches and sit down,
the water is nearly gone, and my hands are so wrinkled,
like that space behind your ear,
that I think I might know
what it would feel like to grow old with you.
Bring a table
and two chairs, a bucket and a broom. We will need things
to lean on.
I fell asleep in the tub, you see, dreamed I was a potato,
your potato, stewing in a pot, blistering hot,
swimming in the brew, but dehydrated and cold. I dreamed I was
sitting on a curb, smashed and white, shedding my jacket,
singing for children in yellow slickers
who dodged the steamy rain drops
from my kettle boiling over,
and I dreamed I was new, soft and pruny,
prickly to the touch, considerably smaller than the tub
I was bathing in, and you asked me to get out of the water,
and follow you into the woods,
and even though my mother had warned me
of the perils that lurk there, in sugar-coated shacks, and huts
built of straw and brick, the towel you held out
was so white and plush,
I had to get out
and step in.
~ LM Feinstein has been published in Poetry Midwest, Hazmat Review, Vincent Brothers Review, and Jigsaw. Most recently, she was awarded first prize over-all in the Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest. Lisa has also been a featured reader at the Pure Kona Poetry Series.