Someday I’ll marry your horseshoe bowl,
kiss your suction cup of wetness clinging
honey resin to bar top to you, the bartender
rinsing both our bodies with Liquid Death.
Opulent. This veil of frost lingers
for a moment only, so let us toast
ourselves, squeeze sugar stems between our fingers.
I think how cocktails are like little funerals,
icy organs shambling us through the service
where we remember: she was so young, just two days
until retiring, party and cake
cancelled, your appearance
marking where we each retreat
to our own private spectacles.
Shower me in edible glitter. It’s my birthday.
Let me lick the rim of your luck. Again and again,
garnish me in lychee, squash blossom,
plantain, tangerine, dragon fruit, the snap
of latched doors, this blood blister
thickening on my thumb, blueberry mold
in fingerprint ridged like dunes, this desert
we curve our knife through, the bone-
white lungs of the strawberry, opened,
juices stampeding.
__________
Dan Schall is a poet based in Pennsylvania. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in
Merion West, Arboreal Literary Magazine, The Shore, The Light Ekphrastic, Right Hand
Pointing, Cactus Heart Press and other journals.
This poem was selected by Anthropocene Guest Editor HLR
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