You Have Nightmares About Dying in the Bathtub
It is as if a ghost were walking in
and out of your body, your heart bobbing
up and down, like a champagne cork
floating down a river. Your father tried
to teach you how to become an orphan. Try,
he said, to go a whole day without talking,
a week even, his fingernails gleaming
like the bells in church. Once,
after your father came home late again,
your mother threw a box of hammers at him
from the top of the stairs, and you watched
as the box flew open midair like a parachute,
then fell and broke both of your father’s feet.
You heard the maid weeping in the bedroom,
dusting beneath the table and weeping.
This is when your father walked in,
the water all drained out of the tub,
and you unable to move your feet.
“My God, what are you doing?” he asked.
“Practicing,” you said, and then died.