How To Kiss Poem by Linda Hepner

You have forgotten how to kiss.

Touch your lips to mine,
lightly, tingling
with the freshness of
a first encounter.
Gently, spread your lips
as if to smile, and part them
slowly, suddenly,
like a breeze that breaks
through barriers; feel my breath
as I feel yours,
warm, cool, and then reach out
your tongue, so tentatively
that it intrudes to taste
the entry to my inner sanctum,
just as you stepped once into
my Friday kitchen, savoring
enticing whiffs of warmth,
of baking dough, and as the hour went,
fragrant spices, oils and meats
full of hunger and promise.
This is a kiss that any lover feels,
man woman, woman woman,
man and man. The lips, the lips,
the tongue, desire for the whole.
This is the kiss, the kiss
that then must cease, deliciously
with sweet new pain and longing,
faced with a forked road in the orchard:
stop; retreat to fantasy, imagination,
forced back by ancient warnings …
or carry on – plunge deeper, now
for me your woman, you my man,
there is no stopping and we’ll never cease
to probe and push and taste and bite
and let our arms and legs and hands
grasp each other’s skin and soul until
the kiss becomes a penetrating union.

That is my kiss, my wish.

LRH
3.7.10