The best slice of pizza I ever had
was up in Providence, Rhode Island,
in a joint whose name I don't recall,
and in which I'll probably never set foot again.
And the best kiss I ever had occurred without
me getting laid. I was twelve.
It was dusk in the neighborhood
of unhappy waitresses.
This girl with long, stringy hair, frosted lip gloss,
green eye shadow, one of those fuzzy sweaters,
was hanging upside down from the limb
of an anemic swamp maple.
She was catching flakes of March snow on her tongue.
I was pa**ing by, dribbling a basketball.
“So kiss me, a**hole,” she said.
Now there were six or seven ways of saying a**hole
on my street, three of which were, depending
on the circumstance
and inclination of the hour, terms of endearment.
Her request came so matter-of-factly from
her upside-down lips, with such candor,
that I did exactly as I was told.
Her tongue was the coldest bit of turf
on which I'd ever trespa**ed,
but, oh, it warmed,
and, for a full minute, she s**ed my tongue,
and bit my lower lip, and gently kissed
where she had bitten.
Though blood rushed to her head, she kept
on kissing until my twelve-year-old member
made its presence known against my corduroys.
“Touch my breasts,” she whispered.
And I did, gingerly, not knowing the language,
unsure of exactly how much pressure to apply.
Her sweater left tufts of cotton on my fingers.
I stared down at my palms amazed,
as March wind blew the tufts to float like
milkweed spores around us.
“Goodbye,” she said, and swung upright
on a branch, then through a window,
presumably her bedroom,
where she disappeared.
I never saw her again,
except, perhaps, the ghost of her,
riding a bike on gloomy Sunday afternoons,
or poised in mute profile at a red light
in her mother's car.
It doesn't matter.
I'm not even sure where this poem is heading,
except, a really good slice of pizza,
or a kiss, can save your life,
and I believe there are moments
that mark us with an ashy thumb,
so that we are
stained for love, so that our stories
are stories only when they've been retold, a hundred times,
if only to ourselves, if only when we expect nothing,
and deserve nothing,
and, in hidden valleys under the rose,
a voice whispers: “So kiss me, a**hole.”
And we do.