Wash

By Kiki Petrosino

So I lean back & Redford asks, “Water warm enough?”

& I don’t answer because I’m holding my breath.

I don't know why he asks.

He never uses the faucet to shampoo my afro—just an old clay jar.

Redford fills the jar at the backyard pump.

Then he leaves it in the sun to heat.

So it’s only going to be so warm by the time it gets to me.

That’s the point of doing things natural:

You get what the sun dishes out, not what you customize.

The sun is not a customizable thing.

I try to say this.

Redford leans over me with his hands full of shampoo.

His blue shirt skims my face.

There is a dark hole in the armpit.

If it were a wound, it would be terrible.

I glimpse the long curve of Redford's body through the hole.

There’s his arm, stretched above me.

Then a smooth triangle of torso disappearing into shadows.

His shadows are grey & brown as grass.

There’s no sun here.

But some lights are moving—tea-colored, delicate.

The pale ribs move in Redford’s flank.

It’s these that help him breathe.

Ribs have their own set of shadows, their own lights.

I count the shadows, then.

I count the lights.

Source: Fort Red Border (Sarabande Books, Inc., 2009)

Poetry and Film: Reading in the Dark