THE FIRST KISS

by JOHN FIELD

2015

Imagine the bare naked thrill
Of turning over a rock
And watching little white things 

Writhe against each other in the dirt. 

How did I get so snarled?

When I was fifteen I didn’t know
How to do things with words
That knew what to say when I talked to a girl, 

My thoughts either too shy or too weird 

When I transferred them
From my mind to my mouth.

Night after night in a festival of heat
Between the sheets
I sighed and cried and cursed and prayed
That one day soon I’d discover
Love’s true anatomy with Gretchen Glover.
Once I asked my older brother
What he and his girlfriend did
In the back seat of his Chevy.
His reply was a look which implied
That the drip in my personality
Was unfixable. So much for that.
Each time I measured myself against him
I got down on the ground and looked up at his knees.

Heart-jailed, I self-absorbed into myself 

Like a worm in an apple, aware of the fact 

That if I kept my feelings locked up 

Without the possibility of parole

I’d end up babbling baby-talk.

At school my teachers
Needed documentary evidence
To prove I was alive.
Hour after hour I watched time’s
Tired clocks tick-tock my classes away 

Until they weren’t anymore
And then took long solitary walks
Just to get lost
Instead of going anywhere.

Everything changed the afternoon
Gretchen shined her angelic smile
In my direction,
Detached my shadow’s anchor from my shoes 

And beamed me into the stratosphere.

The next day I took my brand new life
Out of its jewel box
And bought a pair of neon-green corduroy slacks 

Loud enough to shatter glass.

Too shy—alas!—to fan my tail feathers
In front of her (afraid the older boys would laugh) 

I strutted around like a show-off cock
Inside the castle walls of my previous life,
Perfect except for the fact that she wasn’t there.

Worse still, I felt like a virginal medical student 

Attending his first anatomy class
The night Gretchen and I
Watched Robert Mitchum chase Jane Russell 

Halfway across Mexico in “My Kind of a Woman.”

What could my sweetie possibly mean 

When she whispered in my ear,

 “Mitchum’s got sleepy bedroom eyes 

And so do you.” How did she know

I hadn’t slept a wink in a week
Worrying myself sick about our first date?

Seconds later she wasn’t Daddy’s little girl 

When she gave me a tongue-tasting 

Breath-sucking shuddering something 

Akin to bliss. Maybe even LOVE?

Not so. Twelve hours later
My jukebox dreams ran out of nickels 

When she fired her shotgun grin 

Straight through me
And brought down the captain
Of the football team.