Kiss Poem by gershon hepner

It was so thrilling, and it startled us
so much we found no words that could express
our feelings, of which we had great excess,
and I now trivialize when I discuss.

We crossed some lines, and that is surely what
produced the thrill, and also sadly why
we haven’t ever dared once more to try
to touch again, ignoring touch-me-not.

I write about them now because I miss
the thrill, which sadly never has recurred,
and long merely thinking of the word
defining what so startled us, our kiss.

Sonia Levitin sent me a synopsis in examiner.com of a new book, “My Dreaming Waking Life: Six poets Sixty-Six Poems” containing poems by six poets from Contra Costa County: Elaine Starkman (Walnut Creek) , Joseph Chaiklin (Concord) , Florence Miller Fremont) , Dave Holt (Concord) , S. Solomon (Walnut Creek, now living in Reno) and Marc Hofstadter (Walnut Creek) . I particularly liked a poem by Joseph Chaiklin, originally from Connecticut, is a Stanford-trained audiologist and has published professional papers on hearing. My poem was inspired by this one, called “The Kiss”:

It was thrilling, startling,
ended wordlessly as it began
and never happened again.

'The Kiss, ' about an unexpected kiss between a white man and black woman in an office in the late 1950s, is on one level about an upset racial order and the excitement of sexual attraction and the sensed danger aware of lines being crossed.

10/28/09