Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “bath time songs for little deists” by Sienna Tristen.

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bath time songs for little deists

By Sienna Tristen

in my dream there is a bathtub,

& god has just come home from a long day of

being / seeing / seeking / reaching

& is ready to soak her pains away.

she twists the tap & creation flows into the basin

faucets pouring elemental bubble bath—

creamy helium, pinkfire potassium

the periodic table crashing & splashing

while she folds her fluffy towels by the sink.

one toe, testing nudge into the starfoam

& god slips lissom & lithe into

the bathtub that is the Universe

picks up a paperback with rippled edges

& reads.

(this is us. this is our moment. this is our coming into being.

the Milky Way is but an eddy pulled from the languid rolling of her ankle,

somewhere in the middle of chapter eight.)

when she is satisfied, she lifts her body streaming

from the water, sets her book sinkside

wraps herself in a towel the colour of always &

pulls the plug.

(that drain is no black hole—

that is too dismal a metaphor to make, too cliché.

her bath may be tepid with entropy,

but our Universe is one of many

& all plumbing leads back to the sea.)

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Copyright © Sienna Tristen

Sienna Tristen (they/them) is an author, poet, and literary organizer living in Treaty 3 territory who explores queer platonic partnership, the nonhuman world, and mythmaking in their work. Among their published works are the award-winning literary fantasy duology The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming, the poetry chapbook hortus animarum: a new herbal for the queer heart, and poems in Augur Magazine, Plenitude, and the League of Canadian Poets’ Poetry Pause. When the sun is up, they work with The Word On The Street Toronto to showcase the coolest in Canadian & Indigenous literature.

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