A Kiss

A kiss. A smile.
I have felt your lips brush mine,
have felt the soft curves of your waist
beneath my hand
before.

Your lips caress mine for a moment
and in my mind, like a flash, is a vision,
a vision of you
as a southern belle.
This first vision is followed by a
second – as real, as brief, as fleeting
as the first:
You and I
old,
very old, sitting together on a swing.
It is the dusk, the sun setting behind a slight ridge,
your body, old and
frail, wrapped by my bony arm.
It is the dusk
and the sun, sinking, will rise again soon.


Copyright 2002 by Peter A. Stinson.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry 360 with permission of the author.