Bathtubs, Three Varieties

First the old-fashioned kind, standing on paws,

like a domesticated animal-

I once had a whole flock of these

(seven-for good luck? I never asked

the landlord) under a walnut tree

in my backyard, like sheep in shade.

They collected walnuts in the fall

then filled up with snow, like thickening wool.

Modern tubs are more like ancient tombs.

And it is a kind of death we ask for

in the bath. Nothing theatrical

like Marat with his arm hanging out-

just that the boundary between the body

and the world dissolve, that we forget

ourselves, and that the tub become

the sarcophagus of dreams.

My bathtub in Japan was square, and deep.

You sat cross-legged like a Zen

monk in meditation, up to your neck

in water always a little too hot,

relaxed and yet attentive to the moment

(relaxation as a discipline)-

staring through a rising cloud of steam

at the blank wall in front of you.