Before Anyone Arrived

I scrubbed before anyone arrived.

The bleach came in a plastic bottle

with a warning label I didn't read.

Just poured it straight into the toilet bowl,

into the sink, watched it work

on what I couldn't see—

the bacteria, the film, the proof

that other people were here.

Three hours later my hands still smelled like it.

I caught myself at my desk,

sniffing my own wrist like it was perfume.

Like the smell meant something.

The fumes rose in white clouds.

I was erasing something

I couldn't name.

By evening the chemical was gone

from my hands but not from my hair,

not from the fabric of my shirt where I'd

leaned against the sink.