Hygiene
My body smells bad
It keeps me from finding a partner
but without a partner
I don’t feel the need for hygiene
I have a feeling of deep resistance
to taking my clothes off
and stepping into the enslaved rain
of a tiled telephone booth
Rain inside a building
designed to keep rain out
is unnatural
If I lived next door to a waterfall
my life would be different
There are places like that in the Upper Peninsula
a 3/2 with attached garage
and adjoining waterfall
but I don’t live anywhere near there
I couldn’t afford a house in those neighborhoods
They wouldn’t let me use food stamps there
They wouldn’t let me talk to their children
Children give me a sense of possibility
but they wrinkle their noses at me
and whisper to each other
I can hear them
I have very good hearing
I hear things others can’t
I took a creative writing class
and wrote an autobiographical sketch
though I claimed it wasn’t
I claimed it was about someone
who had shit stains
in the seam of his jeans
The teacher said
it was a detail that had the power of veracity
I insisted on smoking in the classroom
All the other students were against me
They all washed behind their ears with ivory soap
took naps when they were told
and wore helmets when they rode their bikes
The Dean came and kicked me out
I could tell he was afraid of me
I could tell he was disgusted by my smell
If I had a girlfriend I’d be careful about my hygiene
I’d spray my feet with athlete’s foot spray
I’d go to the drug store and shoplift cans
I’d shave my face and watch the whiskers
flee down the drain
I’d use bay rum by the half-gallon
I’d put it on my clean-shaven face
and the back of my neck
If I had a partner I’d feel a need for hygiene
because there’d be a real woman
I’d want to please
and not offend
but until then my body smells repugnant,
and there’s nothing I can do
about it
Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over fourteen-hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for numerous prizes, and was awarded the 2017 Booranga Writers’ Centre (Australia) Prize for Fiction. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, is based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. He lives in Denver, Colorado, USA.
Inky Interview: Author Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois from Denver, Colorado
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