The Kiss

‘You are the prettiest girl I have ever met,’ the boy said timidly, as his shyness, the shyness that made him hunch his shoulders, was equivalent to the desire that urged him to speak. The girl smiled and hesitated to respond. Even though she had seen the insecurity of the boy as a weakness, she couldn't help feeling a flattering enchantment provoked by those words coming from such a candid creature. In the same timid manner she replied: ‘Thank you.’ It must be noted, nonetheless, that her shyness was flirtatious and nothing more.

 

The boy, standing in the opposite side, instantly filled himself with confidence, resembling a rosebud that, in an instant, blooms within the rocks, the earth and those trees that retain with the world a perception extended throughout the decades and centuries. He slowly guided his hands to hers, taking them in with his eyes. Returning his gazed once more toward her face he said: ‘I wish I could look at you all day, all the time.’ The pause he made before continuing did nothing other than give echo and profoundness to the words that would follow: ‘Your smile reminded me that things still more beautiful than words can spring from the lips.’

 

Its not to say that poetry is for women, particularly those as young as she, a more powerful aphrodisiac than the body and the hormones; but only that the vanity that shapes the more philistine female behavior requires that there be more substance in the approach than a kiss taken by force or surprise. And since her eyes were now all his, the smile – that just one second ago was the strength and the grace of an unsuspicious praise – dissolved itself in the pursing of lips that called for the boy to advance and act as the occasion requested. As his face slowly moved in, her face accordingly indicated a meeting. Then, from his lips, proud and impatient to narrate the moment, slipped the following words: ‘It’s now or never.’

 

In the exact instant the words reached the air, the girl – in accordance with an irreprehensible symmetry that gave just proportion to the demerit of the last verse – extended her hands to the boy's chest interrupting his movement and inquired: ‘What did you say?’ But no answer was necessary; since the ears that heard the sentence with such shock were those same attentive ears that had previously been delighted with the teasing and boasting that had taken place. And so she declared her indignation shaking her head and repeating two or three times, searching for the right intonation: ‘I can’t believe it!’

 

Thus, before the boy could explain, correct or amend his conduct in the face of such imminent failure, she turned her back and uttered a single word: ‘Never!’

 

In poetry, as in prose, it follows that every word – innocent as it may seem – is subject to the previous; and the sentence, that is read or heard in a moment, leaves behind in time and memory the one that precedes it. Just as it happens when a dog in search of an animal senses its smell more evident and present the more recent the passing of that animal, such is the way a poet should face its reader. In the case of the dog being the one holding pen and paper, the trail shall be that which exudes from his own tail and nothing more.