poem – into the drain

Sometimes I’m so cold
that I can’t fathom how bones
can feel that way
but then I jump in the shower,
make it real, real hot,
the steam fills the room,
and my skin prickles and becomes red-
I’ve become so hot that I force myself
to remember the deep cold that pushed
me to the shower, the cold that buried itself
into the marrow of my being and imprisoned thought.
I wonder if this is how a caged mind thinks, or feels,
or if it even has memory at all if only bars serve as an observation point.
As the last drops of water skim down our legs and drip toward the drain.

-M. Taggart