One Kiss

By Tess Gallagher

A man was given one kiss,
one mouth,
one tongue,
one early dawn,
one boat on the sea,
lust of an indeterminant amount under stars.
He was happy
and well-fitted for life,
until he met a man with two cocks.
Then a sense of futility
and the great unfairness of life befell him.
He lay about all day like a teenage girl
dreaming
practicing all the ways to be unconsciously beautiful.
Gradually his competitive spirit began to fade
and in its place a giant kiss rode towards him.
It seemed to recognize him
to have intended itself only for him.
'It's just a kiss,' he thought,
'I'll use it up'
The kiss had the same thing on its mind,
'I'll use up this man.'
But when two kisses kiss it's like tigers
answering questions about infinity
with their teeth.
Even if you are eaten, it's okay,
you just become impossible a new way.
Sleepless.
Stranger than fish.
Stranger than some goofy man with two cocks.
That's what I meant about the hazards of infinity.
When you at last begin to seize those things
that don't exist,
how much longer will the night need to be?

Our annual spoken word night comes this week, so we've been messing around with some poetry at school. Admittedly, what I know of poetry you could squeeze into a tin can but nearly all my favorite poems don't meet school-age appropriate subject matter and language limits, so this will have to serve as my alternative venue, while I prepare "What If" and "Ode To My Socks" prompts for the classroom. A gentle poke at male vanity, hubris, of "One Kiss," I love best the last few lines: when you at last begin to seize those things that don't exist (i.e., take charge of your long-standing, paranoid, exaggerated, illusions), how long will your self-imposed night need to be? Step into the light.

Currently Playing: "Strange Enough," N.A.S.A.