the ruined bathhouse

the ruined bathhouse
by vivian
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stepping into the ruins of the bathhouse,
where the sun shone in through the shattered ceiling,
and i was getting a wistful sort of feeling
looking at the dandelions coming up through the tiles,
and seeing the moss and lichens mingle with the grout
i gazed in admiration, with awed eyes and a small smile
yet tingling in the back of my head was an inkling of doubt.

long ago, life was hard too, but we’d good things that are lost now
a certain tenderness exuding from some warm, familiar faces
well-trod paths, smaller worlds, temples and third-places
of which the humble bathhouse was just a single instance,
but now we’re tethered to the home, sworn to the hearth
yet stretched beyond snapping across impossible distance
and as i looked to learn from this monument to a lost world,
all that i saw around me was slowly coming unfurled.

oh! melanie! (let’s say melanie was here with me,
since she’s the one who showed me this world in the first place,
and i’ve been but her zealous student, and am still only
playing catch-up)
melanie, here’s the men’s bath, check this lovely mosaic
a fit and smiling man, green-skinned, clothed in naught but seaweed
there was a time when things this pretty were prosaic
obvious, almost everyday and standard, but we’ve now no need
for pretty things, which profit little and crystallize much labor
and when you can bathe alone, why bathe beside your neighbor?
nostalgia for “the community” filled me with its glimmering,
but around me, things felt uneasy, and warped, anxiously shimmering

dispelling it: over here, my dear! now here’s a splendid treasure
in the ladies bath, above the dry basin, a painted marvel
even torn and mildewed, faded, how magnificent beyond measure
a half-serpent woman, serenely countenanced, cooling in a stream,
eating fruit and lacksadaisying, sunrise all around her
i stared up at her ruined glory,
and i went to the far edge of admiration,
and i mourned her desecration,
and the degradation of this edenic paradise,
and then i had a feeling that wasn’t very nice.

the insubstantial mirage around me dissipated
and my idyllic reverie was annihilated
for i’ve never seen a pretty pretty bathhouse,
even a ruined one,
and i can’t imagine bathing with my neighbors,
for i know few and trust none,
the third places, the community, the innocence remembered
its nothing i’ve witnessed firsthand,
though i’ve seen it retold and oft rerendered.
what i know is stay at home and stay online,
what i know is brave the roadways to pay-to-play,
restaurant food, mall walking, window shopping,
and even that shit, which should never be mistaken
for adequate socialization
is falling by the wayside, and for those of us
lucky enough to even have a place to live,
our little rooms will close in on us like coffins,
and the atmosphere too will close in on us
less like a coffin, and more like a big iron bull
trapping us over a flame, searing us alive
until the unbearable warmth renders us dead.

but the bathhouse looked so pretty in my head.
and while i thought of its beauty, i felt happy.