Nobody in this town believes in God,
or laundry,
or dishwashers,
or anything that makes you feel good.
clean. I turn on the tap and
wait for the water to run holy:
Give me strength to
wash the twelfth dish of the evening
that is not mine.
My fingers turn to raisins.
I dump the cabernet
down the drain
and think about my sins.
I scrub the bolognese
stain out of my housemate’s tupperware;
I play Almighty with a sponge.
I search for something holy
at the bottom of the sink,
and find only a colander,
some mushy peas.
They will each return home
in disbelief:
their blender has risen to the drying
rack after three lukewarm days in the sink.
Touch its side, I’ll say,
and they’ll repent, or they won’t,
but they’ll know:
In our house, feeling is believing.
I grab dish thirteen
(a cheap plastic wine glass)
and hear the front door open.
My roommate’s rings clink on the counter.
Sighing, she rolls up her sleeves.
The bottle of Dawn,
a soapy confessional,
our testament of complaints,
and still forgiveness.
Her cuffs have slipped to her wrists,
but she continues. We continue
If anything sacred exists,
It exists in my kitchen—
under my slippers shuffling on linoleum,
between the water droplets on her sweater.
It’s the fresh wrinkle in her palm,
in the corner of my eye.
Anything loving exists in our shared sacrifice,
not in a dishwasher,
nor in anything that makes you feel good,
CLEAN.
