Aurora Magazine 2019

Now she hurts me, but I don’t think she knows, or doesn’t want to know, That I love the smell of mildew, of her white dove soap that my grandfather watches me lather and rub on my body

with her washcloths, the smell of bleach burning a memory of this hour. I slipped and fell once

and hit my head on the concrete, and didn’t move; Watch me, all of you, Look at me: That baby you threw out with the bath water, I would have told them, When she left, a woman came in.

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