Katie Priest

Below an Original Riverbed

Someone’s mother is tired.

She’s been standing for years now, 
the decades doing what they do.

She’s nested with her head in the sand, 

desperation fisted. She’s still losing
her footing despite the surrounding concrete. 

The annual migrations miss their landing –

lost somewhere downstream. 
Mother lies, rotting from the ground
up – miles running between her thighs.

Lanes crack her upper and lower lips, 
the once-marble veining back in blessed time. 

She calls her lover over, tries to cover 
her bulging belly. Build a home for her body 

before he cries out – some warbled ecstasy, 
this their moment. 

Don’t stay – 
destroy me. 

Mother swallows, her marble throat opening. 

Katie Priest (she/her/hers) earned her M.F.A. at Boston University where she was an editorial assistant at AGNI. Her work has appeared in Oxford Poetry, Mare Nostrum, InVerse Functions, and others. Katie was the recipient of a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship and the Arthur Oberg Poetry Prize, and curates AGNI’s social media.