The first shower she had after her baby slithered from her was a circle of baptism for her body. Her skin, like pasta in the colander, hot and wet and new, rearranged in the water with the knowledge of what she could do. She was clean like a pink china cup. She brewed the tea of mothering success and drank it up. But dozens of years of teapots is a lot. Tannins collect on the bottom. The water goes cold. Each swallow has the ubiquitous taste of the other one. Be alarmed if you must, but mothering gets old. Her child hardly needs her now. She is broken-hearted and longs to be undone. She wants the lush water of that first shower, a scream in the library, the song of something new to come. Some women take a lover in times like this. It is not sex they are after, it is their own desire they want to open, wrapped in paper with a bow. Their own bodies surprising them under fresh lips, their skin a new field, seeds in hand, ready to sow. And when rain comes and waters the earth, those seeds will have their own first shower, a blessing and promise that something can grow. ***