The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2020

Everything Left Open Kimberly Ann Priest The ball joint of a showerhead wrenched into place, wisht of water sputtering its cup, so easy to tease into exertion. Outside the window, bats in the alleyway and underneath the eaves rejoin this world—your silent sweat at 1AM: pine, nicotine, gasoline, toothpaste. My bare chest pressed against the plastic brightening with scum, your cum draining out of me like fire ants into a porthole where their red bellies will smooth out a labyrinth of veins, pant of buzzards circling a doe’s pronged cavern carved open by running board and wheel, all your camshafts humming, black smudges on a marker board that no one can erase, the dozen or more times I told you this was not the way into a woman’s body but you couldn’t hear me over your mother’s voice begging a newspaperman on the phone to please never print the story about alcohol, minors, and your car. You were seventeen. I was casualty waiting to happen. 192 The Meadow