The last thing you should have to endure
is a gawker interrupting your modest toilet
of Aquafina water and corpse gray rag.

For all I know, you’d been scrounging,
begging, dodging unspeakable horrors,
to afford this opportunity to remove
hard weeks of sweat and grime.

I suspect on so hot an afternoon
the water felt good-silver cool,
the breeze luxurious,
your spa as fine as any Roman bath.

You stood partly in shadow
partly in light strong enough
to reveal the worry lines of addiction
around your eyes,  the nub
of a chin where teeth had been,
our Venus of Clifton Street,
working that damp rag
over crusted neck and pits.

I confess, I saw more than I should,
and upon that look,
I hissed Nice,
and became someone I didn’t like.