Joshua Zeitler

I USED TO GET KISSED

like the women in movies get kissed by debonair leading
men, that one hand at the small of your back, one hand
holding your head in place kind of kissing, the leaning,

tonsil hockey, falling upward off the face of the earth,
make all your friends ask what the hell happened to you
kind of kissing, really, I swear it did happen to me,

not every day but occasionally, which felt good
enough at the time though I admit it was a long time ago
but not long really in the scheme of things, like that

cosmic calendar where humans show up at the last minute
basically just for the final countdown but they show up
and trash the place, anyway if all my life were a year

I’d’ve wasted the whole year, minus some picosecond
here or there where I was getting kissed, truly kissed,
kissed out of my shoes then kissed out of my pants,

professionally kissed but as for this year, this last
real one not a metaphorical one, I haven’t been kissed
even once, well or otherwise, though I’ve dreamed about it

more often than I haven’t and I wake up confused
about what really happened, where did he go, does he want
his shoe back or do I keep it, is this all I get of him

which is—considering it was all imagined and what I get is
actually nothing—pretty meager but I can pretend
one of my stale, stinky, shabby knockoffs of a shoe

is the one he left behind, throw away the other of the pair
and go door to door asking excuse me sir is this yours sir
did you leave it in my dreams last night sir and the stirring

unmistakable as he flicks his eyes up and down my body
and bites his lower lip and shifts in his stiff stiff jeans
like he’s embarrassed by what’s about to happen, the kiss

of the sudden wind I make running home startling us both.

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