A Kiss

And sometimes it is
loss

                                                       that we lose,

          and sometimes

it is just lips. When I was


                           a child, I would ask my mother
to tuck me

                             in, wrap me tight in blankets,

            make me into a burrito.


                           Sometimes I would wait in bed,

pressing my body stiff, like a board,

mind like a feather, silly— setting the scene

                        

                        to be seen.

                                          So I could be wrapped.

                                              So I could be kissed.


And what

                                  I miss most,


is being            made                                 again.

Credit

Copyright © 2015 by David Tomas Martinez . Used with permission of the author.

About this Poem

“This poem explores a Heraclitean idea of love, showing how, in the end, we often miss some of the most mundane things about the person lost, such as a kiss. This poem is an attempt to wiggle my toes in the stream of that kiss.”
David Tomas Martinez