The shower (Charles Bukowski)

we like to shower afterwards

(I like the water hotter than she)

and her face is always soft and peaceful

and she'll watch me first

spread the soap over my balls

lift the balls

squeeze them,

then wash the cock:

"hey, this thing is still hard!"

then get all the hair down there,-

the belly, the back, the neck, the legs,

I grin grin grin,

and then I wash her...

first the cunt, I

stand behind her, my cock in the cheeks of her ass

I gently soap up the cunt hairs,

wash there with a soothing motion,

I linger perhaps longer than necessary,

then I get the backs of the legs, the ass,

the back, the neck, I turn her, kiss her,

soap up the breasts, get them and the belly, the neck,

the fronts of the legs, the ankles, the feet,

and then the cunt, once more, for luck...

another kiss, and she gets out first,

toweling, sometimes singing while I stay in

turn the water on hotter

feeling the good times of love's miracle

I then get out...

it is usually mid-afternoon and quiet,

and getting dressed we talk about what else

there might be to do,

but being together solves most of it

for as long as those things stay solved

in the history of women and

man, it's different for each-

for me, it's splendid enough to remember

past the memories of pain and defeat and unhappiness:

when you take it away

do it slowly and easily

make it as if I were dying in my sleep instead of in

my life, amen.