Cocktails & Dreams, Baga, Goa

quantum of pepper in a Bloody Mary so perfect
equates tipsy to happyrolling down my throat
in jeeps of pinwheel candyseducing stomach
you Sir be a fine mess belly blushing a baby’s pink
my frame a door to seaweed pleasure to impermanence
land of bones heaped on sour cream a cathedral’s holy
harmony of slow guzzling throat raised prostrate
at gravity’s feetbrims of want a bloom in throes
galloping to saturationnight in the esophagus lying
flat I want to go downlike moon on a field of grassed
starsmy mother says guard the full moonit brings
great luckthe last full moon party I attended coincided
with the country’s demonetization schemeI blew cash
like an ATM machine on overdrive the death of limits
make my hands lonelyfrom the space between fingers
resembling pale french friesin the bar’s penumbra
when lightness imbueslike a visa approval sharp
so jubilant I start to laugh from the senseless tickle
of uninvited memoryso hard my eyes wrung
to a pour of waterfall milk in a warm bath I seek
course correctionI love mirrorsthe song of eyes
the spread of anxious touch do you also plan for life
while slivering bareinto thin dark elegies like this

Satya Dash is the recipient of the 2020 Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2020 Broken River Prize. His poems appear in Poet Lore, ANMLY, Waxwing, Rhino Poetry, Cincinnati Review, and Diagram, among others. Apart from having a degree in electronics from BITS Pilani-Goa, he has been a cricket commentator. He has been nominated previously for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Orison Anthology and Best New Poets. He grew up in Cuttack and now lives in Bangalore, India. He tweets at: @satya043. 

(Cocktails & Dreams, Baga, Goa was first published in Elephants Never)