grow up let go

by eulonia

i’m in the bath before
it is drawn the waterline rising
to my ankles and only yet
lukewarm. when we
were kids she’d
bathe us in just two
inches, a wan bar of soap
passed between
our chins, a plastic cup poured
over our heads down our backs
we curled like two
seed pearls
strung together
shivering, skin
aglow.

tonight i go and i
am twenty years older and i
turn the silver knob all the way
to red until it stops and
cannot go past.

i sink deep, spread myself
into a flounder on the bottom
rest my feet up on the edge.
i go under to the mist-light
beneath the swirls of soap
turning islands and peninsulas out of
arrested air.

caroline brings the matches like
i knew she would. she doesn’t ask
questions. she is good, switches
off both bulbs and shuts the door
even clicks the light in the hallway
coming in blue through the transom
so i can see better in the dark.

i am a grateful sea-star. i take
the book between my suction-cup hands
and begin to strive for light while watching
sparks leave trails across the sky of
striker strip. powdered glass and carbon
black. phosphorus hums alive
a flame unlocks its yellow heart,
blues its mouth wide open
eats the cardboard stem.

this is not a ritual burning.
i am not sad
nor do i ache.
tonight i will not
light the plastic curtains making me a halo
in the bathtub even though
the hunter came last night
and the night before.

even though he was red
like a match head and though he
wanted me
to burn.