Peter Cowlam
Angel made good with the whitewash, at all Points here in the bathhouse, a man in slacks, A jacket, one duty left: To annul.
Here was our confinement, brick on cold brick, And the systematic stopping of our pulse.
Its spillage has been blanked out, bit by bit.
We are due in a place where he can’t chance Public recognition, as I list off
His name, pursuit no matter what distance.
All I now see is his brushwork: these glossed, Once rubiginous stains. Do I expect
To tell him just how it is? I mean this
Monstrous throb in my veins, this pang for revenge. I can’t scrub these numbers from my flesh.