Navy blue in the hall.
Five and five doors
and blue navy rising,
rising under the underslots.
Five and five doors to ten rooms,
each with a girl in bed,
each with a girl sleeping.
Each with a yawning
window, each with a lamp,
doused. Each with a mirror.
.
The navy’s loud as wheezing. Ah aha.
Mountains climb beyond the window.
Ten and ten arms circling pillows,
not other bodies in their beds.
Ten and ten hands doused with sweat.
Girls solo, tucked into themselves.
Rooms drenched in exhales.
The navy sounds, their breasts.
On thermals, birds beyond windows.
.
A pug scrubs himself along carpet.
Room to room he marks,
spurts of darkness
under each underslot.
Girls’ cheeks pillow-creased,
ten girls ferning themselves.
Mouths open, awe.
To navy tongues.
.
Navy blue thick in the hall
as navy grackles, clotting. They hoist
their wings, gaw and fuffle
against each other, thick as piss
flooding under underslots.
The doors are slick with their cud and shit,
their tide under underslots.
.
Us girls now bathing.
Off the hall, five and five knobs
to ten rooms, each with a girl in tub.
Ten girls nailing mosquito bites,
scrubbing resin from ten and ten feet.
We sink into upside-down longing,
shave navy plumes off mounds.
The baths grow cold. We rise.
Our bodies rise to face mirrors.
Five and five mirrors,
twenty girls facing ourselves.
Five and five mirrors now,
twenty girls facing ourselves.
And through the walls
we face each other.
And through the walls
our backs to each other.
Aha. And in the mirror
twenty girls. Me?