Emma Gascoyne

Bathing By Firelight

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 ...