First Kiss

Here you are forty years

later in a white coat

examining my ears.

All I can think

is how your tongue once

turned in the tunnel

you're peering into. The

fault is not in my ears,

but between them!

No one can see that far.

But could we gaze back

through the years and dead stars

to the doorstep of my parents' house,

you bending down with your tall mouth

to make the softest landing on mine,

having thrown off my balance

so tenderly, can you explain,

good Doctor, how to regain it?

Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2018 by Wyatt Townley, "First Kiss," from Rewriting the Body, (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2018). Poem reprinted by permission of Wyatt Townley and the publisher.