Chlora's Bathmat & Ducks
© 2002 Ginger Henry Geyer
glazed porcelain with white gold
20" x 9" x 8"
Chlora locked the bathroom door.
High upon the potty, she read a banned book
of fairy tales and tooted like the Lil' Engine That Could.
She looked down at the floor, knowing
that if she stared long and hard it would change the world.
The linoleum atoms would get activated
and link with rubber atoms lining the bathmat
and make it levitate, transcending the slippery slope
where she had squirted bubble bath.
She squinted and emblazoned a Gate of Paradise design
onto the bathmat and climbed aboard.
Like Aladdin she flew out the tiny bathroom window.
But down below in the garden, havoc broke out.
Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious
in his sight, but the ducks were squabbling again
and running around like swan wannabes.
How could she get those ducks back in a row?
Chlora might be flighty but she understood chain reactions.
She swooped up her bicycle lock and
sailed into her craft closet for scissors and staples.
Toilet paper rolls quickly converted into a chain,
encircled the ducks, and locked them in.
They had proper boundaries now but needed a gate
that could swing both ways. She could
borrow the flowery gate on her rug. It might be facing
east but at least it was attached to no fence.
And she would also go to Jesus, The Gate,
and bring him some WD40
in case his hinges got rusty.
She knew Jesus was not into red carpet treatment,
nor was he one-way like that alley out back.
The interconnections were getting knotty.
Chlora unlocked the gate. The chains fell off.
She rolled up her rug, snug as a bug,
and parallel parked it next to the tub,
ever ready for the next prayer, bath, or question,
whichever was needed first.
Indebtedness:
Holland Cotter, “Beauty in the Shadow of Violence”, NYT
Eric Law, Inclusion: Making Room for Grace
Andrew Middleton, Rugs & Carpets
1,000 Nights, Aladdin and His Magic Lamp
Bennett Sims, The Servant as Leader
Smithsonian Institution, Oriental Rugs
Unknown, “Jesus Loves the Little Children”
Also: Betty Sue Flowers, Rumi, Jerry Falwell,
