Jane Anderson
Changing
Empty, the showers smell
of old flannels and soggy hair ties.
But they are full now and we are washing off
our watery selves,
the scent of bleach.
Out of her costume she is huge,
she's been painted by Freud,
a glorious palette of greys and blues,
ice-white and purply-pink
on bread-dough thighs puckered with shadows,
calves like pedestals that drizzle with foam
as she soaps her body and hums.
In from the pool come three old girls,
hair dry even after the exercise
of avoiding men's bodies
and bouncing in the wake of younger women's speed.
Now they angle their heads like quizzical birds
denying the luke-warm showers'
attempts to flatten their pearly perms.
There's comfort in the shape of these bodies,
flesh that rolls or bolsters, stretches or sags.
We are solid and real here.
Page(s) 55
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