As disgusting as it may seem

my bath still holds the water

in which we bathed all those years ago.                                       

I will admit that it has left a thick film on it                                             

and the dead skin left on the rim of the bath                                       

could almost be alive again,                                    

small animals have even found a home there                                      

but it is a part of the house now                                        

I just cannot pull the plug.                          

And somehow, after all these wave-less nights,                                    

the roses are still living and bobbing                                 

like lifebuoys on the grimy surface                                  

as if markers of our sex.                             

Every nowandthen                          

in those mindless moments we all have                                  

when we slink off into our pasts                                     

and allow ourselves to go frivolously free,                                       

I bathe in the scum of our lives                                       

and when the cold soaks through my clothes                                   

I play with the chain that could suck it all away