had silly thought, found perfect poem. a nice thing to watch unnoticed. small.

The Difference

You scrape while I daub:
a difference in our bathroom:
one augments, the other minimizes.
A long-married couple is a paradigm
of unreason. You would stage our life,
I, reveal; you would trim, contain,
while I bend to collect stray
acorns and lemons to array on a shelf.

Then there's the matter of razors:
mine pink-handled and curvy, nicks
more flesh than your stiff-legged
soldier bearing its twin scimitars
onto a lank field of damp skin.
We agree to avert bloodshed
by not using each other's.

And mirrors: one is wiped of distracting
fog. The other magnifies a cheek
to moon-size, the better to probe
each follicle or pock. A landing field,
mine is filled with colors while yours
reflects in black and white,
diagrams hair, angles and doubts.
In mine we plant on peau douce.
a united nations of brightness,
and here is the crux of our truce:
a ruse or a razing ? we can each choose.

-- Rachel Dacus