Bathing By Firelight Poem by Emma Gascoyne

On Sunday nights in winter
as a treat, mother would fill
a tin bath with water and
set before the fire I would recline,
far away from the cavernous
coldness of our Victorian bathroom,
where pipes played tunes and
monsters lurked beneath
showing only their clawed feet.

I would sit up to my waist
while firelight gave blushes
to skin and the smell of
camomile was woven
thread by thread as she poured
from the yellow and white bucket,
cascades of fresh clean water
that danced on my pointed
shoulder tips and trickled like
raindrops down a windowpane.

There was room for two
just, as my sister and I,
tips of toes touching and
the smell of Christmas pine
that still crackles in my mind
of Sunday nights in winter
and a tin bath filled with
warmth and love and water.