POETS Main Page INDEX of Poets INDEX of Titles & First Lines Dunn poems

Dunn

 

Stephen Dunn
1939-2021

 
"The Kiss"

 

She pressed her lips to mind.
          – a typo

How many years I must have yearned
for someone's lips against mind.
Pheromones, newly born, were floating
between us. There was hardly any air.

She kissed me again, reaching that place
that sends messages to toes and fingertips,
then all the way to something like home.
Some music was playing on its own.

Nothing like a woman who knows
to kiss the right thing at the right time,
then kisses the things she's missed.
How had I ever settled for less?

I was thinking this is intelligence,
this is the wisest tongue
since the Oracle got into a Greek's ear,
speaking sense. It's the Good,

defining itself. I was out of my mind.
She was in. We married as soon as we could.

© Stephen Dunn
Buy Stephen Dunn's poetry

POETS Main Page INDEX of Poets INDEX of Titles & First Lines Dunn poems