Bath salts.

Bath salts.

Pinched pink skin

Flabby puckered faces

Scrunched up against a milky sun

Hunkering down into water

Heavy with salts

Steam rising into the chilly air

Sending encrypted signals

From crinkly strangers

Out into the ether

To dissipate,

Undeciphered.

Skinny dippers and plump chumps

Ageing hippies with sunspots

Gathered in a rooftop pool

The crowning glory

Of a modern spa in ancient Bath.

Some disappointment lingers

On the faces of tourists

Who had hoped for a Roman orgy

But were directed instead

To the newly refurbished

Five storied baths

Where freewheelers keep a lookout

For fancy Dans in Rayban’s

Looking for a thrill

Of a different kind.

Grifters on the make

Looking to take

Some innocent old gel for a ride

On the wild side.

Georgian rooftops glisten

In sunlight

Downpipes rattle

Television aerials and phone towers

Proliferate

Spidering across the landscape

H.G.Wells would have recognised

The view

A war of the worlds old and new.

As the effect of fatty acids

On the libido

Is massaged away.

A strong-armed masseur

Easing the tension

Cleansing the system

De-clogging the pipes

Opening the tubes

To a fresh flow of air

Blowing over the roof

From the boutique gin distillery

On the corner

The smell of Juniper

Coriander and Angelica

Adding an evocation

Of Baccanialian delight

To a thalasso session

In a Somerset Spa.