Poetry
Shower
Paul Smith
issue six
Your first shower in
three weeks
is not like the other ones
there is a rare scent of
sediment
getting rinsed off
the effluvia of dammed
soil behind cofferdams and
bulwarks and the headworks of
mighty hydro projects that is
finally unloosed and
allowed to drain and
make its way to the equator
and your feet
here in the shower
over your shoulders, arms, groin
and knees
Imagine you are the earth
sensing the trickle of inorganic decay
heading downstream to the floor drain
you don’t towel off right away
your imaginary friend
wants you to know how this
feels
had you never been born
About the Author
Paul Smith writes poetry & fiction. He lives in Skokie, Illinois with his wife Flavia. Sometimes he performs poetry at an open mic in Chicago. He believes that brevity is the soul of something he read about once, and whatever that something is or was, it should be cut in half immediately.
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