Nikita Bleyer
Ritual Sestina
The cold bathwater is slick with oil I submerge myself and I feel holy And coffee and cream is too rich to drink And I think my best friend thinks I’m a jerk. In the bath I am blue but I want to be pink, The white soap lathers and gets in my eyes. It smells fresh but shouldn’t be in my eyes, Shiny and green and clean like olive oil, I’m a pink-eyed-freak, a freak-eyeing-pink. I wish I could smell like all things holy But I can’t so I sit up and jerk My oil slick body out of the drink. I don’t even feel like having a drink. I wish I was in the hurricane’s eyes Where me and the storm could wrestle and jerk And milk from me some of that golden oil And loosen up what’s in me that’s holy. I wonder if it would come out all pink.
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