I run a bath, my first in years.
The cobwebbed exhaust fan is broken.
Behind the locked plaster door
steam settles like dust over mirrors, chrome
draw handles, basin, towel rack
overstuffed with the gaudy blue towels
my mother has always preferred.
I am in the tub
before the water has risen
from puddle to pool, too hot, kneeling, hands
on thighs, legs blooded, shoulders white.
Outside, an electrical storm rages
but there is no rain, only skies
too high up to guess at, imbricated
metals and blue and bone, red
shingles wailing through the air.
I stand up to look out the window
above the vanity, open to the screen,
water reaching barely to the top
of the titanium rod in my fibula –
flood ruler for a man of worry.
While the old oak whose branches I could touch
does not sway, the copse of eucalypts on
the highest hill in the park two streets over
thrashes so madly, I wonder
how the roots stay in the ground.
Then I lie back, sleep away the heat
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