Abutting Godliness

John Wesley, you have wetted and whipped me into the serious business of cleanliness, the stainless decency of days, freed me from the malodorous filthy flesh with its unwholesome skin and hairy underarms, the hard, dark school of must and dirt, its monarch reeks. Give me courtiers of grace, bodiless waifs and impeccant angels, unpicking and unscratching, their hands charming the air, their fingers clean, their rectums luminous. O smutchless prince of soap, Sweet John, give us this day pine-fresh romance and fartless office victories, empty the sewers, clear the air of stench, nip the toxic waste of our own spleens in their cadaverous buds: Scion of Perfection, terror of organic life, mop and broom tormentor of the common floor—shower-tyrant, bathophile.

Askold Skalsky

Askold Skalsky’s poetry has been appeared in numerous small press magazines, most recently in Southern Poetry Review and Notre Dame Review. He has also published in Canada, Ireland, and Great Britain. Originally from Ukraine, he teaches English at a community college in Western Maryland.