I shut my eyes under the scalding stream,
scrubbing off last night’s dream,
when suddenly I hear your voice again
as though it caught in the clogged drain

and was sent bubbling back up from the other
world where you’re not my mother.
This time, it’s really you. I’m really here.
I blink. We do not disappear.

Dad left, you say, to shower at the shop
so I don’t need to stop
just yet—and yet I do, unable to
resume old customs, unlike you.

In a one-bath four-person household, we
learn what we mustn’t see,
growing, in time, so coolly intimate
with one another’s silhouette

behind the opaque frosted shower screen
that once more stands between
us two. While at the mirror you apply
foundation and concealer, I

wash out my hair with rosewater shampoo,
which means I’ll smell like you
all day. Mama, I shout, I’m coming out,
and as you look away I knot

around me tight your lavender robe de chambre,
cinching my waist, and clamber
out of the tub, taking care not to step
outside the cotton mat and drip

on the cracked floor you’ve polished with such zeal
we’re mirrored in each tile.
Yet, you’d forgive spillage, or forget.
What else will you love me despite?

*****

‘Coming Out of the Shower’ by Armen Davoudian is reprinted with permission from Tin House Books from the book The Palace of Forty Pillars (2024). The poem was originally published in Literary Matters.

Armen Davoudian is the author of the poetry collection The Palace of Forty Pillars (Tin House, US; Corsair, UK) and the translator, from Persian, of Hopscotch by Fatemeh Shams (Ugly Duckling Presse, US; Falscrhum, Germany). He grew up in Isfahan, Iran, and is a PhD candidate in English at Stanford University.

“Shower Silhouette” by tausend und eins, fotografie is licensed under CC BY 2.0.