Sonnet for my Future Thirst Traps

Frances Klein

When “spit in my mouth” falls out of fashion

we will say: spread me out on the dewy

 

grass, make of me your picnic blanket, a

thin whisp between you and the earth that would 

 

swallow you whole like a tart on the tongue,

powdered sugar dusting the strawberries.

 

We’ll say: crumple me, your too-long receipt, 

ignore me like the survey on the back,

 

forget me until tax time, then regret.

Call me garnish, call me parsley, call me

 

the bay leaves you remove before serving.

Call me the buckling aluminum walls

 

of the soda can you crush, carelessly.

We’ll say: litter; we’ll say: prostrate, breathless.

Frances Klein (she/her) is a poet and teacher writing at the intersection of disability and gender. She is the 2022 winner of the Robert Golden Poetry Prize, and the author of the chapbooks New and Permanent (Blanket Sea 2022) and The Best Secret (Bottlecap Press 2022). Klein currently serves as assistant editor of Southern Humanities Review. Readers can find more of her work at https://kleinpoetryblog.wordpress.com/.

© Variant Literature Inc 2023