The Shampoo is the one
We used to clean the dog
When I was young.

I cannot smell flowers
When I use it,
Only clean dog.

The suds collect between
The strands of my hair
And glitter like rhinestones
On a flapper's undergarments.

The conditioner is the gag gift
I got on my sixteenth birthday.
My friends said it smelled like
The pine air-freshener
I kept in my beat-up old car.

The pine smell mixed with the rose salts
Reminding me of the cover of a Vogue ­magazine
That I stole from my mother.

The model was perched on a rocky river bed
Like a wood nymph
The Vogue photographers just stumbled upon.

The soap is the licorice one
He gave me for our one-month anniversary.
He said I was not a vanilla girl
And should not use vanilla soap.

The soap bubbles clung to my skin
Like pockets of previously unexplored
Intergalactic space.

I pull the drain and watch
The cloudy water tornado out.

I take a deep breath and sigh.
It is nice to smell like myself.