When we were very small my sister and I would be bathed together
Sitting face to face all pink and smiling smooth and soft among the foaming Matey bubbles
She sat hunched against the rounded empty end while my back would be pressed against the taps
The one still hot the other cold the rubber shower attachment hanging down
The plug beneath my tiny hairless balls as quite methodically I’d try
To get the chain neatly along the crevice of my arse
And casually we’d wonder at each others differences;
But as the years went on increasingly we took our baths alone
That jolly Jack Tar Matey in his naval sailor suit and blue bell bottoms
Made his magic foam for me alone
While for my sister there was new Miss Matey, blushing demure in pink and her bubbles
I thought effeminate and frivolous somehow, unlike my own
And still I always automatically sat at the tap end of the bath
Without thinking of it, it just seemed
The natural way, although I guess, yes
Now you mention it, the more uncomfortable
But still it was a habit I continued well into my twenties
Thinking without ever forming words to the effect
That the curved and unobstructed end of the bath tub was feminine of course and that
Among the hard and jutting taps from which the water flowed
Must be the only station for a boy or man;
But like the bubbles I had left behind in childhood
These certainties proliferated wildly and could fill my view
While still remaining insubstantial, artificial and
When I tried to grasp them be
No longer there
Tags: assumptions, bathing, childhood, habit, perceptions
