Massage in a Former Soviet Spa

A sign at the sign-in
station of the clinic,

I can read only
the English and hope

the translation is true.
"Program for the body"
and to show what health is,
a diagram: steak-red

muscles layered over
bones, a macrame

of nerves.  In the treatment
hall, the masseuse waits,

thick-armed, Russian,
without a welcome.

It's off with the clothes,
wrap up in the sheet,

lie down.  My body is
foreign to the body

of the schematic
her hands are trained to.

In the Grimm's century,
didn't Schwabian gentry

hire the lowliest beggar,
scabberous and foul,

to bathe the kinder,
so they would be instructed

in the filth of flesh?
The masseuse digs deep,

an old believer in
unearthing sin.