Kashawn Taylor

A Proper Shower

First, you must disinfect
the correct stall,
which everyone agrees
is the second to last
on the right. The water
pressure is two-star-hotel,
and that is saying something.
In lieu of scrubbing
with the frayed long-handled brush
I opt for double-fisting
dueling spray bottles
electric green for all-purpose
pale yellow Lemonal to remove
just some of the rinsed-off regrets
of the man who washed before me,

I feel a bit like Lara Croft,
wielding dual pistols in a forgotten
metallic sepulcher somewhere in Central America;
instead of odd, ancient beasts,
I am killing off the last
of what could have been
my bunkmate’s future children.

My murderous reverie is stolen
away when the liver-spotted man
undressing to my right speaks:
That’s a great idea.
Yeah, I guess it is.

Once stripped to unmentionables
you must make a grave choice:
wash your shame by hand
or entrust it with biweekly laundry.
I choose the latter,
because it has been a soiled year.
All the fucks I once gave
about scratchy shitty underwear live
in the shower drain with black maggots.
My fucks smell larval, of rotten
hair, dead skin, and, of course, lemon.

To start this cleaning ritual
there is a circular bit
of raised metal which one
must not press exactly,
but must apply a slight pressure.
It takes a moment to register
touch like an old cellphone
or a penis that’s been gripped
too tightly for too long
by pruned hands which feel
all too familiar, but which are all one has.

There is no temp
control, so I pray the water
will bake me this time.
I am afraid the hot or cold
depends on where the sun hangs
in New England’s sky or how I feel.
I never thought to ask.
Well, I cannot feel the sun
and I hang desperate,
one of many stray dogs begging
for scraps and good fortune.
I sigh at my funhouse reflection
in the lustrous silver tomb,
I press the button.
The water glacially impales my body
(butsweetdeathdoesnotcome)
like I belly
flopped from ten stories high
onto a frozen motel pool.

If you dissociate, you may,
for a time, elude all stress:
that felonious fear of forever
being a second-class citizen
which re-dawns every so often
mid-sentence, like the slowest strike
of toxic lightning; ruminations
over the ever-changing world,
what you missed, what and whom
you will never get back.

As the water hydrates my kinks,
beads on my stomach and ass
my dick refuses to cooperate.
Under normal circumstances
I’d use my left, as though my cell
were in my right, scrolling.
But if I turn my head
at the wrong moment, eyes
might meet with meat in hand,
and that is not normal,
so I switch to my right.
A stranger is stroking me.
I am almost there.
Good Idea Man starts harmonizing
with the patter and sputter of water;
euphoria escapes me despite
my tender stranglehold.
Back to the flaccid beginning.

Before you exit and enrobe
you must lather, rub, wash, and rinse.
I suggest you repeat and repent.

I am clean, but I am not
in the mood to experience,
to be experienced.
There is a delicate layer of scum
I cannot quite see, but feel,
can never abrade. Other
hawkeyed men, however, can
see something is awry, squalid.
As I pat dry my brown back,
shoulders, they see real filth.

Maybe it’s the hard water
or unfinished prurient thoughts.
Is what they see my hope
crushed under a conviction?
I need another shower.
Wet filth is still filth, after all.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Kashawn Taylor is a Black, queer writer based in CT. He holds an MA in English and Creative Writing. Much of his work speaks to his recent experience with the criminal justice system. His work has been published by or is forthcoming with Prison Journalism Project, The Indiana Review, Querencia Press and Oyster River Pages. His first book, subhuman., is forthcoming from Wayfarer Books in March 2025. His Instagram is @kashawn.writes