KISS-CROSSING                                                                                         

End of term celebration, a friend’s house;

a few drinks and cigarettes to show things change –

we thought so anyway, even as time passed.

Walked back – or perhaps just walked – with her,

woman for some time.

Thought we didn’t know each other but I’d listened.

 

Funny – well, good – how some things just are:

walking, for example, then, with her, unplanned.

Some switch flicked, different, other world,

A privilege, from someone, don’t know who, why.

Is this still my life? Never imagined

mine could move between scenes like that.

 

A few moments only gone, time to cross, go halfway,

crossers’ refuge, can wait halfway,

she held my arm to say stop, then kissed me,

kissed and seemed to care for me;

didn’t matter where we were, placeless,

whatever time it was or wasn’t.

 

Funny – well, good – how pictures form

even within a kiss – no summons, no call –

saw me, ten years before, knee-deep in waves, alone,

looking, half-smiling, like I knew each of us was

in the end alone but knowing too that

the joy of each wave can be shared.

 

Did she see something like it? I didn’t ask.

Would she see what it meant? Yes, I know that now.

But I did know then two lives had crossed

and one kiss, an act of thankfulness, had marked it.

That wave gone, we looked for an instant

then walked on to the other side.