Ode to the Bathtub
Like sleeping in silk pajamas,
or receiving anesthesia,
a warm bath soothes my nerves.
Tubs come in many forms:
built-in, free-standing or sunken;
claw-foot, whirlpool or ofuro.
I give thanks for David Dunbar Buick
who found a way to coat cast iron
with enamel and thereby
bequeathed to us
the whiteness of water.
No orthodontist is needed
for this set of teeth:
it smiles and smiles.
This same Mr. Buick invented
the lawn sprinkler and founded
an automobile company in Detroit.
At the end of a long day,
I climb into my aquarium
on wheels and allow my past
to go for a joyride.
–DJ Savarese
Bio
DJ Savarese graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Oberlin College in May 2017 with a double major in Anthropology and Creative Writing. An ASAN Scholar Fellow, he was also the recipient of Oberlin’s William Battrick Poetry Fellowship and their Comfort Starr Award for meritorious scholarly work in Anthropology. His poems and prose have appeared in The Iowa Review, Seneca Review, Prospect, Disability Studies Quarterly, StoneCanoe, Wordgatherings.com, Voices for Diversity and Social Justice: A Literary Education Anthology, and A Doorknob for the Eye (chapbook). Currently a 2017 Open Society Foundations Youth Exchange/Human Rights Initiative Fellow, he works to make literacy-based education, communication, and inclusive lives a reality for all nonspeaking people.