his nail paint chipped off
when his fingers his dropped into the bleach
in the bathtub he drawn a bath
of bleach to kill the leaches
stuck to his childlike figure
and four feet away his mother's
hand held camcorder captured
the last drink of her child's blood

but she taped over
the lake michigan vacation
unbeknownst to her
her memory was erasing
the enclosed room
became encased in fumes
and the hot bath water
felt like a frothing public pool

there was a large upright piano
the keys stained with flecks of nail paint
that no one ever seemed to play
in his entire childhood
but his mother would sing him songs
more the worse her tongue got
and they slept in front of the t.v.
beneath which somewhere the home movies collected dust

on a american wall calender
designed for 1998
she drawn out plans
to visit each of the great lakes
but the red paint
she'd used to circle the dates
melted and ran from
the bleach left brewing in the bath tub