Book XI

What We Talk About When We Talk About Bath Time

By Casey Flynn

Listen.

I’m telling you,

time is a rag

in a drain.

Yes, we’re talking about

bath time, but isn’t bath time

all time? Isn’t what you want

from the rag and what you want

from the drain the essence

of time? Time is relative, sure,

but it has nothing to do

with gravity or the speed of light.

It’s all about desire.

Do something you want

and time is fast. Do something

you don’t and time is slow.

‘I don’t have time for that’

means I don’t want to.

‘Not enough hours in the day’

means I want too much.

Doom or dopamine scroll

or meditate

and time responds accordingly.

Then there’s the particular temporal

disfiguration of parenthood.

Have a child or a few

and the interminable

length of a single day,

when collected into months and years,

becomes a speck of dust

in a wind storm. Desire

for rest or space or a shower

meets desire for the infinite

capacity to be present

in every beautiful moment.

Which brings us back

to bath time. That time

at the end of the day

when exhaustion is ubiquitous

and getting clean is one final

hurdle one must leap

before one may lay down for good.

The scene: the kids are clean but they wish

to stay and play some more

in the sudsy water. Unicorn and dragon

towels do not tempt them. Your proposal

that they may play for the duration

it takes for the tub to drain

is approved unanimously.

You pull the plug

and listen to the gurgle-whoosh

of the tub emptying itself, settle into

that rare moment when you

have nothing to do but get closer

to getting horizontal. Maybe even

get a little horizontal on the floor

while you wait. But a splash overtakes

the tub wall and soaks your pants

and a scream echoes through the tiled

chamber and yelling crescendos

and one hits another and another throws a cup

at your face and connects and you lean in

to mediate and one slips in the sudsy tub

and crashes into the faucet and there is blood

and another laughs and oh-my-fucking-god

why isn’t this tub empty yet is the world

moving in slow motion or have I lost

my goddamn mind with sleep deprivation

and over-caffeination and over-stimulation and