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Self Portrait with Coupe Glass by Dan Schall



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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