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My Husband Giving Me a Bath
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
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MY HUSBanD GIVInG Me a BaTH I remember doing this for fun-you'd lead me to the tub with candles and foam, undress me, and always the water would surprise me, as if I'd expected something else to ull the tunnels of my ears, my hair mermaiding until you'd tug me up, beginwith crevices of propriety, soap your way down. I'd like to thinkyou still enjoy it, dimming the room, and, really, ifthe light wasn't so, I wouldn't see the steam rising from my knees and this breast I keep a careful eye on. I haven't told you: this is the only place my body feels right anymore, the inside ofan egg being kept warm by something that wants it to live. Yesterday, I worked so hard to get my shirt on, only I was too tired to pull my arm through when I realized it was backwards, and whenyou found me sleeping with my stupid elbow strapped to my ear, it made you laugh, I'm glad it did, but it scared you, I could tell. I could tell anyone who's wondering: it's a bust to maneuver that single boob like an old glory, silly when the rest of me is lumping up under this and that organ for you to bend and kiss the one nipple still intact. Bless her: the last thing intact around here-the boys might as well be home for holidays, their playful wreckage coveringthe place. Today I spilled capsules, teabags, pictures from the album, stationery and that lamp I tried to reach but threw a book at instead. Oh, 5~ those boys were such dirty things, I loved it, I'd use a handful ofshampoo betweenthe two, scrub them good, squealing and squirting each other like dolphins. Speaking of mothers, it's still a miracle yours stayed the week, though she almost went home after somebody's Kleenex sifted through an entire load oflaundry like a burst offusty petals. Her hands work differently thanyours, but when she rinsed my hair it felt like you, balancing my head in the crook ofthe elbow, my hair so thin she had nothing to squeeze water from when she was done. You know I've never seen her like that, tender in her efficiency. I didn't tell you this either: she insisted on shaving my armpits, though I never botherwith what's there, and it tickled me so, we both got to laughing, like drunks, we laughed so hard. I thought you might walk in and see us like that, her head in my armpit. I wanted you to see it, I wanted it to be somethingyou remember, the way the body, even undone, offers itselfto joy. ...