Bathing in Your Brother’s Bathwater (by Nin Andrews)

Nin Andrews reads at Cleveland’s Literary Cafe on 14 May 2009
[photo by Dianne Borsenik]

Bathing in Your Brother’s Bathwater

Bathing, Miss De Angelo informed us in health class,
is very important, especially once you become a teenager.
In fact I can smell many of you this very day,
so I advise every one of you girls
to go home and take a good long bath tonight.
I know some of your folks like to skimp on water,
but consider it homework. 
Say Miss De Angelo assigned it to you.
But Girls, let me warn you.
Never take a bath in the same water as your teenage brother.
Why?
Just picture this:
all those tiny bubbles settling on your legs
when you sit in a nice tub of water.
If you could count every itty bitty bubble,
that would be only a fraction of how many sperm
stream from a single man.
Even if he doesn’t touch himself,
the water does.
And it only takes one. 
One fast moving whip-tailed sperm.
And you know how easy it is to catch a cold,
how quickly that little virus races clear through you.
And once that happens,
no one will believe you’re any Virgin Mary,
no matter what you say.


(c) by Nin Andrews, all rights reserved – used with the author’s permission

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Nin Andrews is the editor of a book of translations of the French poet Henri Michaux entitled Someone Wants to Steal My Name from Cleveland State University Press. She is also the author of several books including The Book of Orgasms, Why They Grow Wings and Midlife Crisis with Dick and Jane.  Her book, Sleeping with Houdini, was published by BOA Editions in 2007.  Her chapbook, Dear Professor, Do You Live in a Vacuum, was also published in 2007 by Subito Press. Her next book, Southern Comfort, is forthcoming from CavanKerry Press.

Visit her website at www.ninandrews.com and her blog at http://ninandrewswriter.blogspot.com

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