Today's poem is by Dennis Rhodes

This is Not a Pleasant Poem
       

There was a boy who washed his hands
and didn't know he'd washed his
hands. He did not think he had
washed his hands and so he washed
his hands again: he still
did not feel that he'd washed those
hands and no one could tell him
they were safely washed and so
he went on washing his hands til
his hands were red and raw but
never clean. There was a man
who took a knife and slit his throat
and flirted on the edge of death
but he could not die, he did not die
not while he had to wash his hands—
a little boy's work is never done.
There was a boy who washed his hands.

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Copyright © 2024 Dennis Rhodes All rights reserved
from The OCD Poems
Indolent Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission