at the bathhouse

Tomorrow morning we are going to start the weekend by soaking together in a soaking pool. It's public, located outside, tiled, heated, and filled with soothing salt water. While we soak under the grey autumn sky, I hope that we can enjoy the freedom of being unembodied of all the things that we carry around with us during the week. I want our worries to be disregarded and soaped in the hot water like the yen coins in Ishigaki Rin's "At the Bathhouse."

In Tokyo
At the public bathhouse the price went up to 19 yen and so
When you pay 20 yen at the counter
You get one yen change.

Women have no leeway in their lives
To be able to say that
They don’t need one yen
And so though they certainly accept the change
They have no place to put it
And drop it in between their washing things.

Thanks to that
The happy aluminum coins
Soak to their fill in hot water
And are splashed with soap.

One yen coins have the status of chess pawns
So worthless that they’re likely to bob up even now
In the hot water.

What a blessing to be of no value
In monetary terms.

A one yen coin
Does not distress people in the way a 1,000 yen note does
Is not as sinful as a 10,000 yen note
The one yen coin in the bath
With healthy naked women.

Image by Wai Lin Tse via Feaverish Photography

Ah, the value of being worthless. I hope that you also find a way to set aside your worries this weekend, blog friends. I'll be reading your poetry.