you kissed me, once,
kindergarten, recall–
behind my ear.

called
‘bee sting’,
but to a child’s small vision,
the cosmic blue indigos
of mauvender pain
quenched all eternity:

what that then is
which is now was
exploding all away with the terrible
gunshot pain of death
while i was lifted from my plastic seat
with a scream of tearful pain which i did not feel making
during which you clutched me for the first,
first saw me, though i not you,
and together we awoke,
your eye under mine
refocused back
upon a small body
and a violet sponge
frozen in a bag.

i’d seen you before
and you’d seen me
but you’d never kissed me until then
there
sitting at a table at school
copying the shapes of the alphabet
unconscious among my little fellows
waiting, i suppose, for you.

ishtar