To the Shower Drain

Little hungry ten-mouthed fish,
round-gilled,
a cheese grater eye,

you love all parts of me,
and even from that view:

my feet fat, fleshy, and drunk with soap,

everything made larger from below,

the wrong places in 
the foreground,
leg hair, stretch marks,

all magnified in your silvery-sucking.

You are the forgiver,

the only confessional I have been able
to endure more than once.
You return me to the world

pink and moist as a farm animal
pulled out of its mother
and licked clean.
You grant second chances, you carry burdens,
you make amends with me.
How is it that you store all my secrets

and always have room for more?

A one-way door, a water vault,

spiral-tongued.

Every time I pull back the curtain

you’re waiting there for me,
your metallic grin questionless,
faithful, thirsting to help dispose of the evidence.

You’re a kind of confidant,

silent and willing to listen,

but forever leading by example:
take it, take it all in every moment,
you seem to be saying,
but, just as quickly, let it go.

— 2010