Katherine Spadaro: ‘Washed’ and ‘Lamp Posts on the Edge of Water’

Lamp Posts on the Edge of Water

The night is closing in again.
Lined lights are born, and centuries slide
as they plunge themselves down
into stalactites, skewering
bright corrugations which
fend off coiled darkness below.

Katherine Spadaro

Washed

Back here again. At first, it’s done for you,
then you do it alone (while you are able)
in a little tiled box or a shining white hollow,
everything stripped. There is none to impress
with your weakly misshapenness: no point in posing.
Moments that drop as they punctuate truth
to your flesh while it flows through a channel of change—
the clear-seeing water, the absolute cleanse—
the gesture of washing, repeated, of shedding
detritus which puddles around shrivelled feet.
Like this you arrived, and like this you leave,
hoping to wake up, to find yourself washed.

Katherine Spadaro