“The Ceiling”
by Chase Twichell

I’m conscious of my bones
where they touch the porcelain.
The tub stays cold beneath
the water’s heat,
so the two colds
recognize each other,
skeleton splashing
in a grotto of earthly delights,
candles enlivening
the tile overhead,
the perfumed foam
I lie beneath.

A word alighting
on the tongue-tip,
then gone again…
And my eye’s are changing.
Oh, the fussing over glasses.
The mind sees its own machines
blacken and break down,
beaten back into the earth
near the railroad bed:
wire carts, sodden nests
beneath the overpass.
Who sleeps there,
among the dead umbrellas?

Uh oh, I’m lying here glistening
and warm in the River Styx
thinking of death again,
bones in a catacomb.
A trickle keeps it hot,
but the suds are gone.
Look at my 53-year-old-legs,
starting to ache
for their last lover, the dirt.

 

Ontario Review #61