Treading Water

In a locker room—I scour to clean semen smeared on bruised thighs. Purple hand prints coat worse than boat engine oil. The water only dissolves the salt. My whimpers did not still his thrusts as he savored my lack of military bearing. I want to dilute, but my body—

can’t forget. Handfuls of hair. Backhanded slaps. Still shot memories of my father baring his intolerance for the unclean. I’d run to the lake and tread water— rippling with my belonging to another body of people trying to break cycles of hands.

Magnetism deviates true bearing. A water— mark. A dockhand. A body. Just. A body. Uncleansed and wanting stillness—

the soothe of rosewater. A smooth reflection of a ripening body. Secret into stillness. Find a cleanhanded washing of a no-home with soaped hands. Such bearings—

sent me to healing hands. Pews whispered as the priest stood still and I begged idols to redirect my nobody. 10 Hail Marys and forgotten dog tags bared God’s answer. A billet in unfamiliar waters— a holy recleansing.

Now—I am bare ass on cold tile—a huddled anybody. Th in water drips from a showerhead and no wash can clean. I begin with the body, the baring, the bearing, the welt, the wet, the self, the blame, the hands— and a circular scrub off of sin. I am still an openmouthed O unsurfaced—water—

worn. But I can’t return to idolized glass stains bearing down— can’t drift in lake waters rippling with oil next to a handcleaned house. There still will be hands wherever I tread.