I wrote the original version of this poem pretty quickly after Oregon Country Fair, inspired by showering after the festival. There are showers offered on the Fairgrounds, but those always ultimately have the impact of the rock of Sisyphus falling back down to the base of the mountain.

What I’m saying is that they feel good, but by next morning I am as dirtclad as ever.

No, this poem is about that first deep clean shower after camping for days upon days in the woods. The original poem came together pretty quickly, but I wanted to play with it for a while, mess with format and content. And I did, perhaps longer than I should have.

I think there’s a final version somewhere between the two, but I liked watching how one poem was stretched during the writing process. It seemed like the only creative project that I could carry through for any period of time, as if I couldn’t allow myself to do anything else before I finished.

All that said, there I hope you enjoy it; I’ve published the “final” draft here, but you can find the first draft by subscribing to the Patreon!

Let me know which one is your favorite and expect more posts to come.

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The Binding

Sores and scars—familiar wounds from strange
vacations and
ancient wars—score the kidskin you slept
for so long in,
rolled on parched land for so long that rain
has become foreign

You have forgotten what it was to be soil and
what it was
to taste water, rubbing skin where the fire
waxed candles,
cured cuts and sealed scabs with raw earth
called desire,
falling a-slumber under the canopies of pining
doctors and
the lullaby bass from the sunrise afters

Now morning is morning and
the evening is evening and
this after is for cleaning

Aloft, the rain falls, fallows furlines,
perforates
pores and so rides the hairs, so rides
the foam,
so rides the fingers reaping the loam,
gathering dust
from the henna that the grass composed,
kissing those
wounds you never knew existed and
those you grew
accustomed to, lathering hair in ways
taught to you,
rinsing with a flame made from dew

And when the rain ends and
fur frisks on cotton winds,
then you can begin accounting

What it means to have hands clapped sore and
a voice whipped hoarse,
to have toes tanned and soles worn sovereign,
to have body
blushed and figure singed, flesh exhausted and
a mind in brace

Then you can begin this gentle grace, weave yarns
from scratches and
bind fables from abrasions, wet the soot pronouncing
the world
on your face, handmake charcoal ink from carbon dates,
then you can draw
from the ash of nights spent in a fire circle embrace,
then you can chase
the dust of days spent in the shape of figure eights

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