the stream of life

Heatwave. Won’t last. Always
passing, the stream of life, which in the stream of life we
trace is dearer than them all.
Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel,
the gentle tepid stream. This is my body.
He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in
a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly
laved. He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and
sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel,
bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush
floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father
of thousands, a languid floating flower.