Clean

Already his abdomen was sculpted, and already

the thin trail descending from beneath his belly button.

Even now it is difficult to explain it. I was, after all,

only 7; I didn't even know what Turkish meant.

In the dead of winter, which only meant

certain flowers had ceased blooming on the island,

we had driven up into the mountains

to "take the waters," as our parents put it.

Our parents' instructions were simple: they would be

in one room, our sister in another, my brother

and I in yet another. Down the dark hallways

as dark as tunnels, down through the strong smell

of minerals and seawater, the attendants led us

to our rooms. What was that smell? Sulfur?

Aluminum? There was the smell of salt, but it

was not the salt of the earth, not the sea itself.

The old man told us not to sit in the water for more

than fifteen minutes at a time, to drink lots of cold water,

to scrub the salts into our skin, to take care of each other.

And then, he left us. We took off our clothes, did it

without thinking. "You get in first," is all he said, his voice

sounding more like my father's, his voice having changed

almost a year ago. His body had changed, too.

Sitting in the pool, my thoughts began to swim

in the vapors, the steam, I felt nauseated.

I wanted not to look at him. I wanted to look at the tile:

blue and blue-white with the depiction of a terrible vine

twisting and creeping around the tops of the walls.

When he got out and lay on the tile next to the pool,

his abdomen was already sculpted, and the thin trail . . .

He knew I watched him, and he loved the admiration.

When I finally got out, my head dizzy, my heart racing

from the heat, I lay myself down next to him. He scrubbed

my back with a rough sponge, pulled me against his chest

as he scrubbed behind my ears and under my arms. There,

in the steam, I was cleaner than I would ever be again.

Source: Torn (Four Way Books, 2011)