Kissing

• They are kissing, on a park bench,
• on the edge of an old bed, in a doorway
• or on the floor of a church. Kissing
• as the streets fill with balloons
• or soldiers, locusts or confetti, water
• or fire or dust. Kissing down through
• the centuries under sun or stars, a dead tree,
• an umbrella, amid derelicts. Kissing
• as Christ carries his cross, as Gandhi
• sings his speeches, as a bullet
• careens through the air toward a child’s
• good heart. They are kissing,
• long, deep, spacious kisses, exploring
• the silence of the tongue, the mute
• rungs of the upper palate, hungry
• for the living flesh. They are still
• kissing when the cars crash and the bombs
• drop, when the babies are born crying
• into the white air, when Mozart bends
• to his bowl of soup and Stalin
• bends to his garden. They are kissing
• to begin the world again. Nothing
• can stop them. They kiss until their lips
• swell, their thick tongues quickening
• to the budded touch, licking up
• the sweet juices. I want to believe
• they are kissing to save the world,
• but they’re not. All they know
• is this press and need, these two-legged
• beasts, their faces like roses crushed
• together and opening, they are covering
• their teeth, they are doing what they have to do
• to survive the worst, they are sealing
• the hard words in, they are dying
• for our sins. In a broken world they are
• practicing this simple and singular act
• to perfection. They are holding
• onto each other. They are kissing.

American poet Dorianne Laux teaches poetry for the Pacific University Low Residency Program and at North Carolina State University, where she is Poet-in-Residence. “Kissing” is from her collection What We Carry, published by BOA Editions, Ltd. © and is used with permission.