Lisa Segal

Finalist, 2015

Cultural Weekly Poetry Contest

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SECOND KISS

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“Do that again,” he said,
then waited
for me to fall
into him,
air too thick for speed,
me bending
to answer him
yes
while the woman to my left,
a bleached-celluloid whiteness,
receded beyond the horizon,
past the point of regret
or reconsideration.

The sunlit room was hot,
my lips dropping to his,
wanting that second kiss.

A pylon at the Santa Monica pier
traversed the Pacific and wrapped 
around a wave 
breaking on Waimea Bay,
while his lips,
smooth as Velveeta cheese,
waited for
my lips on his.
In the time it took me
to bend over
and fall in,

a monarch butterfly,
setting out from Santa Cruz
made it, 
almost,
to the Mexican 
border.

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© 2015 Lisa Segal