At their first meeting, my first boyfriend asks my father "what was prison like?"

When my boyfriend touches me,

I feel the wings of my pussy flutter

in time with my breath—I kneel

between his legs in his laundry room

while his mother drinks white wine

in the living room, and feel myself

holy when I am so wholly for his pleasure—

This is a love story about my boyfriend’s

laundry room and my Laundromat,

the SUV his parents buy him and my mom’s

Toyota Tercel with the headlight duct-taped on

like a punched eye—I am giving myself to him

because he has everything, and people

who have everything should have more—

and all the ways I have been told my milkwhite

body is a most divine present—all the ways

I think I am made in his hunger—

what his eyes do as they track my body,

I am calling it love—

I am watching him play the piano for hours

and calling it love—

I tell him everything—I watch him—everything

I fill my eyes up, plush white carpet in the den—

I know I am placing my neck between the teeth

of a benevolent animal—

At dinner, I shyly present the boy

to be viewed in the gloom of my regard—

I am giving him my father, greatest love, greatest

wound, he is shaking his hand—

the boy’s teeth elongate at the scent of blood—

I place the points of the animal’s teeth just

touching the flesh of my father’s neck—

are you paying attention?

I am giving the animal my father—

---

Katie Schmid is a writer living in Nebraska. Her chapbook, Forget Me, Hit Me, Let Me Drink Great Quantities of Clear, Evil Liquor is out from Split Lip Press.