His face licked by the pink of neon lights,

green marble eyes

watching our warming beers in the dark.

Under this table,

shielded from the bright stars, his leg hair

dances to Chopin

waltzes in my palm. And I want to drink

him so slowly, hard

jawlines that softly simmer in this tender

night. Four hundred

days since I imagined air around his bed,

to melt in the sheets

of merengue wrapping his thighs. Our day

will come, he tells me

I did not kiss him for the last time just yet.

Luís Costa (he/they) is, among many things, an anxious queer poet living in London. Longlisted for the 2022 Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry, his recent and forthcoming work can be found in Visual Verse, Stone of Madness, Inksounds, Queerlings, FEED and Farside Review. Luís holds a PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London, and likes Baroque music, numbers and wine. He tweets @captainiberia.