2 poems

by Katy Luxem

I want to get drunk with you

A shot for every year of our marriage, the ring

and clatter of small glasses on a dark, polished bar.

Licking salt from each rim, or wounds, or bubbles

in the froth of cold beer. Peanuts in a cracked bowl.

Or cracked peanuts in a bowl. What was it

you liked? A hurricane, murky, me rocking

with a baby in my arms, wine after the in-laws left

Thanksgiving. I feel like taking your hand, tipsy

on the highest ledge. What are we celebrating if not

us? Outdoors at the plastic picnic table, the umbrella 

barely covering our flushed cheeks. May we do that?

Tip the bartender who lets us hotly evaporate just a little

bit together into the late afternoon sun. 

first swing

This must be what they make

those little

leg holes in the buckets for, 

tiny &

absorbing your body weight. 

I love these

chains, how they bring your joy

right back to me. 

Katy Luxem is based in Salt Lake City. She is a graduate of the University of Washington and has a master’s from the University of Utah. Her work has appeared in Rattle, McSweeney’s, SWWIM Every Day, Rust & Moth, One Art, Poetry Online, Appalachian Review, and others. She is the author of Until It Is True (Kelsay Books, 2023). Find her at www.katyluxem.com.