Two Girls Bathing
I am thirteen when my cousin
teaches me how to bathe. We face
each other on the concrete floor,
having carried cool buckets
having carried cool buckets
from Auntie’s kitchen, both of us
walking with a limp to the pendulum
walking with a limp to the pendulum
of water swinging. Carol’s hands
did not touch me like my mother’s did
did not touch me like my mother’s did
when I was a girl and she stood me
and my brothers in the bathtub, made
and my brothers in the bathtub, made
an assembly line of our limbs, water
running, as she lathered then rinsed us
running, as she lathered then rinsed us
clean—three new pennies—before boys
became unlike girls, before even our mother
became unlike girls, before even our mother
whose blood we ate, whose nipples
we cracked, was exiled from us.
we cracked, was exiled from us.
