The Bath

I rested, naked,
as he ran hot water over
my body. Gentle hands. Soft

and careful across my chest,
arms, hands. I thought of you.
Desperate, grasping to think

of a million other things.
You persisted­­—filled with memories
I hadn’t remembered. Of being

washed in the sink: naked, young,
helpless. You must have been happy
then (though I have no way to verify).

I remember you singing (though
I cannot remember your voice)
a song that sounds like no song

I have ever heard. He washed me on
the table: naked, older, made helpless
by grief. I began to cry—­­did I hurt you?

No, my mother died. Running water
to burn away the grieving, leaving
some clean stranger waiting

for the end of time. Humming:
soft and knowing (but only if
I listen). A lullaby from his mother

Russia as he holds my hand. A
quick exchange of sons
losing childhoods. We are remnants

of ancestral grief, unrelenting,
knowing, screaming, mourning,
saying nothing at all.

Tate A. Geborkoff