Riot Party by Amanda Hartzell

Finalist, Summer 2021 Five South Poetry Prize

The heatwave cooked a million
shellfish alive in their beds
and we stand by the kitchen fan
grating lemon, rind shaved
fine and wet by pink fingers.

Hair up sweaty while
black shells gape open,
fleshy bodies laid out on ice.
Too late to know whether
you’ve ordered sick oysters

or if it was a bad time for
a clambake, the hour-eating fire
and tree fronds over raked coals
a waste, chitons and sugar kelp
exposed at low tide a warning.

Fooled by the citrus evening and
its tabasco sun, the party swells.
Everyone shows up like they own
the soft mess of their bodies,
their pale hunger and illness,

like they won’t one eager summer
be cleaned and cracked open.