I often trap my children in the bath
before a big conversation
partly so they don’t wander off
but it’s also the smooth whiteness of the bathtub
like a clean sheet of paper
I can feel my thoughts exhale
into words
so it’s here in the big tub at the cabin
where I dig a deeper trench into their hearts
and fill it with the sorrows of the world
because I need them to understand
why they can’t run over to the neighbour boys
I need them to understand what it means
that the neighbour’s grandma only has half a lung
and after I am done
I look at their wet flushed little faces
like overgrown newborns
and I ask them if they can tell me
one new thing they know
which is when my daughter puts up her hand
farts in a bath smell way worse
and it makes us all laugh so hard
anyone who walked in then
would have seen how badly
we needed it.