George Washington soaked here
The Philadelphia Inquirer
January 06, 2004
the mirror was streaked in red
not a cherry bright but blacker, more
sensual
there were splashes on the tiles
my father had laid himself years before
suds at the bottom of the lion-footed basin
I had too much champagne the night before
to clean it up
or fully explain to my father
- without telling a lie about
cherry trees
Adrienne Mishkin
Adrienne Mishkin is this year's Kelly Writers House Junior Fellow and works full time for the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Neuropsychiatry Department.
This is the seventh and last of a series of commissioned poems based on recent Inquirer headlines. The original headline, "George Washington soaked here," appeared Dec. 14 on Page N5.