by Cathy Ulrich
In the universe where all the bathtubs are haunted, with their catpaw claw feet and dripping faucets, we grow our hair long. We take showers in three-quarter bathrooms that leave steam hanging in the air. We uncover our faces from fogged bathroom mirrors, see hairs that could be blonde or grey and pluck them free.
We hear the voices of our grandmothers, we see the photographs from when they were young. When I was your age, they say, and we crumple the photographs in our hands, flatten them later on our bedroom floors, running the back of our fists over and over our grandmothers’ young faces.
We put nightlights in our bathrooms, leave them on all day. At night, they flicker shadows across our hallway floors. We burn sage and incense and orange candles we find in the backs of our closets that smell like dirty honey, that drip spots of wax on our bathroom floors. We write messages on mirrors with our skinniest fingers, we sway our hips like our grandmothers used to do, when they were our age. We blow-dry and braid and curl our hair.
We want to dance, we say to our fogging reflections. We want to dance with somebody who loves us.
At night, we close our shower curtains and tip our shampoo bottles on their sides, watch the shadows dance across our halls. Our grandmothers call though they know we hate answering our phones.
It’s been so long, they always say when we finally pick up. It’s been too long.
Our bathtubs are rust stains and something faded red, the sound of water seeping through pipes. Our bathtubs are the hunch and shadow in the reflection behind us. They are deep waters and razor blades, white porcelain, water-stained faucet. We bind them with burnt snips of our hair and snagged-thread towels, backwards-written curses. The words our grandmothers have taught us: Young be to used we.
We wipe the fog from our bathroom mirrors. We expect to see ourselves there, but it is our grandmothers’ faces that look back at us.
Cathy Ulrich wishes she had a clawfoot bathtub, they are so cool. Her work has been published in various journals, including Heavy Feather Review, No Contact and Juked.
