ONLY SOAP

can a cake of soap change

a world? just stir

fresh plant oil

into lye, cool

until firm, though it may not invoke

a fragrant new realm

without more time

to scrub clean the soils of this earth,

without perfumed garments

to veil the limbs warped by labor

the souls and bodies crushed by work

cake after cake, so solid

neither lavender

nor sweet orange, cassia nor hemp

yields more fanciful lather

one and another

bottle after bottle, floating their own notes:

after a bath, mother’s scent,

from baby’s skin, this breath