I am twelve when
my sister and I peer into the windows of
my father’s Eagle Talon hatchback
parked in the driveway, locked.
The windows
which aren’t tinted because that costs extra.
It is clean inside, empty
except a calendar of sexy women in bikinis.
I say sexy now
but then
I didn’t know what that meant.
I knew that mothers
were married to fathers,
but I didn’t know about desire:
about holes that need filling,
tension that needs releasing.
I didn’t know the euphoria of orgasm,
how we chase it like a drug, taking hit
after hit after hit after hit.
Then I only knew that my dad had
half naked women locked
away in his car.
I wiggled the door handle.
Maybe he had forgotten.
He hadn’t.
I tried the passenger door,
but it was also locked.
I thought of where the keys could be,
if I could sneak them when my sister left,
climb inside that car,
sweat in that hot stale air,
so tight and contained,
the sun beating through the unprotected windows,
flipping past January to
February, March, April, May.
~~~
Holly Pelesky is a student in the University of Nebraska MFA Program. She maintains a blog, a Twitter, and an Instagram account, often at the expense of her smutty writing. Holly has previously appeared in issue one of HPR.
