The Shower Scene

The Shower Scene

The Shower Scene

Right now the casement’s open to the night
and any creature with a spark of life
could fly right out and still get back to Phoenix

but this woodland has you in its lure,
the eglantine and roses on the walls,
the swallow and the nightjar all declare

this garden is a place to rest, get back
to nature, back to who you really are
beneath those dusty travelling clothes.

Now high above the tree-line in a cave
of ice there lies a field of untouched snow,
and rushing headwaters, the fons et origo

that is the farthest any girl should go
alone. No words are spoken here
or can explain what always happens next.

Free-flying in your naked self — and that’s
pure pleasure — in the water’s rills and tendrils,
you are in paradise, like heaven on earth

then vision or nightmare, it’s as close as that,
the spirit of the woods appears to cut you down.
Woodcutter, granny or wolf, it isn’t clear —

enough to know that things have gone too far
and all too soon you’re with the angels
which is where the money is as well.

And so you end up in the place perpetual
where water is the single syllable that rises
from the ashes, all that lasts after the blast

which comes from nowhere like an August breeze,
comes from beyond the window, from a land
of boiling cloud and altogether bigger trees.