An Ode to Indoor Plumbing

I stand before you, mired in the sins of the night,

Half-remembered, half-forgotten flavours like bile about my tongue,

And, waiting, testing with tender finger-tips,

I am enveloped in your absolution.

I bow my head, my throat like a desert,

The passage of demons and angels wearing a hoarse track to parched dust,

A barren gully, eroding its own walls even as it closes,

And your gift is a flood. Flowers bloom again.

My hand, gilded in your lust for obliteration,

Clears away the sloughed remnants of pain and joy, the gummed debris of indulgence and desecration

Like it never happened, we chorus,

Laying a sheen over guilt and pride alike.

And when my deeds glove that hand in filth, I ask again,

And the spot is out, though damnation looms and Hell would be less murky with you near.

Perhaps I would live more carefully

If you were less forgiving.