Sam Bailey
—
MAX FRESH
Here at the sink, shirt ditched,
nipples puckered. The lightbulb blasting
shame. The towel snuggled up with itself
on top of the radiator. The wall, green–
how I should I say it?–light
like the Google Map of Delaware.
The toothbrush dives through my lips,
the bristles groove with my molars.
There’s a reason to sanitize,
I’ve got the mouthful
of a believer. I’ve got a stars-worth
of paste on my chin. I’ve made a promise
to the minutes that I’ll be here for two.
Me, here, scrubbing, wondering how long
I’ll go on buying Colgate, go on choosing
the fire of Max Fresh Mint. Fire?
White fire. The smoke of
the snow of Antarctica–
don’t tell me you’re not worried
for the eleven babies ever born there,
with brains all sorts of bad probably
from chugging chilled milk.
Don’t tell me it didn’t hurt–
that night I slapped an ice cube on my wrist.
And held it there. With its tiny tears
scurrying to my palm. My veins
choked with blueberry jam.
And mercy old news.
TO MY ANIMAL
I was crawling, goggling
down at the leopard slugs, watching the moonlight
wobble on their skin. Their spots were
stains with no accident to point to.
I had the street lamp plastered on my back.
I was packing that light like a camel.
I was done doubting my victories.
But now in the sunshine I’m back
on these same squares of sidewalk,
this time the slugs gone. It’s true,
the sidewalk looks like sand now. Or like
a hurtful version of my face,
the cement split for an eye, and a mouth.
I am hoping no one sees me with my hands
dumped in my Levis and my shirtsleeves
trying to crawl off my wrists.
I want to see those little gastropods
as my own chubby fingers, each of them
moving one back-scrunch at a time.
They were not going back to some hand
or some country.
They were going to the streetlamp,
they were slipping towards the grass,
they were not fazed by the sturdiness of rocks,
they had antennas I’d forgotten, they had me
on my knees, huffing street, wanting back my animal.
Sam Bailey is a graduate student at the Harvard Divinity School. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, Colorado Review, I-70 Review, and elsewhere.
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