Janet Kozachek

 

 

Hesitation in a Bathroom

 

A soft halo wrapped a wondering mind.

Sequestered from prying eyes,

he hesitates in a bathroom.

On a pretense to cleanse himself,

he procures a moment of solitude.

He steps out of a shower stall,

and deftly finds a pink and turquoise towel

with his wet left foot.

Squatting there to let his thoughts wander,

he finds it amusing that friends and family

presume that he is still in a shower.

Or perhaps they imagine him

attending to some other hygienic function.

Shaving? Brushing teeth? Applying sun screen?

Far from crowds, chaos and responsibility,

he just sits his wet body on a towel,

letting himself air dry and hair dry.

He senses his own presence sprout into being

like an orchid in a steaming jungle.

 

He thinks to himself,

I could be a shaman in a rainforest,

playing a magic ocarina.

I could be transported

to a world in the interstices

between the life and death.

No one would hear the sound

of my solo instrument.

And I would not hear the thousand

cries of the beckoning crowd.

I would be deaf to their demands

and they would be blind to my availability.

He turns the water back on in in the shower stall

and rests on his towel on the floor beside it,

delighting in a bathroom subterfuge.

 

 

 

Devorah Baum

Adachioma Ezeano