Our Last Conversation (First Kiss)
You leaned into my neck and shoulders,
like a soldier, bullet-ridden, thirsty, aching
finally landing on friendly shores.
You knew, at least for this moment,
you were safe.
In the sudden honesty of you, giving up
I forgot about shyness.
I hoped that the soft slide of my lips and gentle hands was saying:
Breathe in these revelations.
Turn your secrets into the life you need to live.
Shed the old, soured skin,
this "you" that is nothing like you.
The risk of a new world.
It will embrace you, and if it doesn't, I will.
If I had known that you were going to run,
I would have given you better music.
I would have chosen more wisely
words mingled among rudimentary kisses.
I met your eyes; you were hiding in my periphery.
You trailed off into the softness of me,
handling my arms, my hair, discovering hips and mouth,
and I sighed like a girl, despite my twenty-five years.
You were tentative, hot and waiting,
behind the gleam of teeth and glasses.
I could hear your heart fluttering,
thrashing like a salmon leaping into the stillness of a waiting pool,
the triumphant claiming of what it had always wanted
your heartbeat quickening beneath cotton//flesh//bone
at the warmth of me,
feeling the eventual culmination
of all we had been saying
and meaning to say
and, then,
there we were.