Going Down, and: After the All-night Vigil

32 the minnesota review Erika Meitner Going Down When I fell on your street it was late. I had been drinking gin from a tall glass. I didn't bow to your stoop like Linus said. He's uncunning, knows nothing, spells laf like that— with an f, gets away with it because of his cop gun and that Muslim thing. Who's he kidding? He would whistle at a nun's boobs if she looked like J. Lo around the hairline. I was only buzzed, walking home circuitously, humming da da da till my feet carried me to the place where your unibrow meets, your low third eye: lug nut, bullet hole, tennis ball, softest lob I've ever seen. At Wimbeldon they play on grass—it's just slower. What a job, to stand in the English sun hitting bright orbs while the crowd boos or nods. This is not a digression. I'm not in trouble again. My lungs work just fine. I ate already last weekend. I'll tell you everything. You can keep yourhead. Meitner 33 After the All-night Vigil The patron saint of 9thgrade crushes blushes. She slides through her seat like it's water or a dangerously deep puddle of pee. How I long for an escape hatch under the cardboard lost-and-found box filled with single knit mittens that itch. The is the semester of endless pregnancy tests. This is the semester of thirsty things. Hand over your panties, surrender your wings. Last year I learned to stop living as if we were all under siege, but then we were again. It doesn't matter that I'm taller. It doesn't matter that I'm wearing a bra with underwire. Where are my instructions, like, Pull over and waitfor the screaming ambulance? Like, Wave your arms towards the sky to mark the drop spot? If you melt me into the sidewalk like wax so I can be swept up post-disaster with the glasscup candle holders and bodega carnations, the limping mylar balloons with important messages, I swear I will forget you immediately, like tampax, like lunch money, like the boy one row ahead with red ears who inks X-men on his folders and won't look at me for one whole year of declensions: dediscodisceredidici. ...