What Won't Wash

I scrubbed yesterday

and again this morning.

Dark crescents stayed

under each nail, warning

me that her porch

is under my skin now,

clay and the scorch

of concrete. Somehow

the dirt refused to leave—

not the kind that floats

away in water. It weaves

deeper. I float

my hands under the tap.

Brown water. Still there.

The dirt's a map

of where I was, where

I knelt and helped patch

what was cracked and old.

Some things you don't match

with soap. They hold.