Kimberly Ann Priest
—
Knock, Knock
By the time the police came
you had already educated me
on what I had done wrong. Sitting
in a bath robe, disheveled, hair
pulled up in a bun, my pale
lips were not shaking but pursed
tightly shut. Thirteen years, I think,
into marriage and a day of fresh
reminders that I was not predisposed
to ignorance. You know
what you did Kim, you would say,
repeatedly; and I would reconsider,
again, what I might have done.
The email I sent to my online professor
was not intended to alarm but,
in retrospect, it must have been
alarming. I don’t recall its contents.
I only remember the sharp knock
at the door and the way
you greeted them with comments about
how I, the pale disheveled women
in a chair {who you freely
identified}, was fine. You had everything
under control; your expression
of sincere concern a mirror
to their expressions of sincere
concern. Three white men stage right
and me under a theatrical spotlight.
I felt older than my thirties
as you each discussed the word suicidal.
Was that in the email too?
{I know domestic violence was.} You would
explain to me the dangers of using
all these metaphors later.
You would explain I wasn’t a danger
to myself as you smiled to the officers,
waving a little behind them
as you closed the door.
Kimberly Ann Priest is the author of Slaughter the One Bird (Sundress 2021), tether & lung (Texas Review Press 2025), and Floralia (Unsolicited Press 2025). An assistant professor of first-year writing at Michigan State University, her work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Copper Nickel, and Birmingham Poetry Review. She lives, with her husband, in Maine.
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