Mark Ward
Turkish Bath
Under the railway arches,
a queer London imitation
with its own elliptical rituals;
a silent bartering for pre-residuals.
You’re one of the contactables,
as Armistead once said.
*
Our groin and ass conjoining
the fiction that skin spins,
our rhythms supersede
the heavy gravity outside.
Each touch is a spotlight throwing
the rest of the world in darkness.
*
The steam is set-dressing
burying the cold sweat of your situation.
We chat about our impending
dissolution into stranger’s lives.
You ladle water over stones
and disappear in their encroaching hiss.
*
I rinse. You shower thoroughly,
a surgeon blanching his skin.
A ghusl, you correct me,
a ritual you couldn’t possibly—
you towel off, leaving
me fouled, with no hot water.
Editors’s Note: This poem is indebted to another poem written by Mark Ward entitled “Turkish Delight” that appeared in Assaracus. Although only 4 words overlap between the two poems, the poet wished to acknowledge the previous publication.
Mark Ward is the author of Circumference (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and Carcass (Seven Kitchens Press, 2020), and the full-length collection Nightlight (Salmon Poetry, 2022).His poems have appeared in The Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, Assaracus, Tincture, Cordite, and the anthology Lovejets: Queer Male Poets on 200 Years of Walt Whitman (Squares & Rebels, 2019), edited by Raymond Luczak. He is founding editor of Impossible Archetype, an international journal of LGBTQ+ poetry.
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