Girls
Girls, every kiss you’ve ever had is in your pores, under the follicle and germinating. A beautyless mark of the disasters we endure when young. All you ever wanted was romance. Was a hand on the back of your neck. Was a hand up in your hair. Was anything but a popularity contest. [You knew you’d lose] You wanted something.
I wanted a gasp. I wanted to feel slashed.
I wanted each lip to be kissed separately:
top lip,
then the bottom lip,
delicately as if handling glass,
then together, sweetly.
I had it mapped out – a routine– like the dances we used to make up in our bedrooms listening to tapes of Paula Abdul and Madonna, but this was going to be better. Stronger. Potent. Like the way they make black and white films, chromatic. I wanted it dripping. I wanted it dripping in color.
In one word: Cinematic.
My first, gave me drool. It was my fault. It was mine. It was.
No, it was the book.
Its’ pages. stupid, stupid books.
Those men wouldn’t rear their heads in the suburbs. Mine was out in the country. Mine was waiting for his call like a gentleman. [And his call is a wild one.] His call eliminates the stains. His call carries him home to me – where it is celestial. Where it is like remembering. Where he remembers, where he remembers me.
from a story told to him long, long ago.
© Umansky 2011
blog of poet, leah umansky 
A beauty.
i liketh