Tonight's Poet Corner: I Leaned Forward And...

I Leaned Forward And...

by Belinda Roddie

I kissed Robbie and felt his tongue turn

to dust against my molars. I kissed Michelle,

and it was like kissing the god of the sun - so

warm, so inviting, so rich in light and energy!

I kissed Edward, but his lips were stiff

and ossified like bone. As if he'd never dreamed

of loosening up to love a girl like me. I kissed

Johanna under a street lamp, which blew out

the moment her hand slipped under my shirt.

She took me home, but I grew cold as soon as

her body began its convulsions.

I kissed Sammy, Manny, and Tammy - the

triplets - all in a row at a birthday party. Sammy

giggled, Manny cried, and Tammy coughed

as if I had poisoned her. They all married

their high school sweethearts, I had kissed

each of said sweethearts at the senior prom
behind cheap plastic photoshoot curtains.

Finally, I kissed you, and it felt familiar,

somehow. A sense of déjà vu from all the flings

I'd had before. The desert and the oasis, the

fossil and the youth. The spasms and the laughter

and the tears and short, rough exhalations. And

you kissed me back, and I wondered what I offered

from my own mouth. A shipwreck? A hurricane?

That last fleeting moment of dusk before the sky

goes from purple to black, and all the constellations

hold one another as the heat dissipates from every

body held in sharp, romantic stasis?