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My soul just had a bath

My soul just had a bath.
Of the kind that has bubbles
and champage and a naked lover.
The moist warmth caressing the skin
and his breath cascading
down my neck;
the candles sputtering
orange, vermilion, azure
and that eruptive
tickle of his fingers

and those poems he reads
in that marijuana voice
to closed eyes; the pores
opening, the grime of
regret oozing out into the
rose-petal soaked ripples...

a few snatches of Traumerei
but I'm really not listening -
there are passions, recriminations,
fights, purulent regrets being
exorcised: by the water,
his presence, the flickering
lavender-scented light.

and there will be rain
and solitude afterwards,
wrapped in a blanket
my soul towelling off
into the dry, bright tubelit night.

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