It’s a chapel of silence in the loudest house,
the place we come to when pressed by the remorse
for the fumbling of the fruit in that primal garden,
for our ungovernable appetite and its ugly burden.
Here we set our imperfections down:
a soiled and soiling creature; of the ground,
of the earth, earthly; of feces, sweat, and urine.
Still, we think, possessed of a soul to yearn
for a better place.

But the best we find here is this—
a small, private room where we come to shit or piss,
or soak in an amniotic tub to bathe
a body clean as a soul; where we come to shave
the animal vestiges from a chin or an underarm.
It’s a quiet, unmentionable place; but it has its charm,
this sad little room, where Adam’s sons and daughters
seek out their absolutions in hotter waters.