Bathtub Madonna on the Friday before Good Friday

washes dishes
leftover pizza in the fridge

(just vegetables
no meat!)

her fingers prune
she

remembers swimming in the backyard as a child

remembers long baths with her mother

remembers asking

(why do my fingers look funny?)
(are God and Jesus the same person?)
(where did grandpa go?)

she turns around to see her son
coming in
from the wading pool in the yard

his fingers pruned
he

asks (why do my fingers look funny?)

Wesley Scott McMasters is from the hills of Pennsylvania and now teaches and writes in Tennessee, just within sight of the Great Smoky Mountains, where he lives with his dog Poet (who came with the name, he swears).