Run Catch Kiss
I am mulberry-stained knees. I am pre-pimpled, freckle-cheeked perfection. I am cherry dimples barely concealed by the fringe of Wrangler cut-offs. I am a gold-streaked halo of lemon vapor and apricot shampoo. I am grubby toenails, bare-feet flying like heat lightening through fresh-mowed grass—its perfume a vetiver veil and I am high on its glory. I am a charge so combustive—I just might spin a trail of sparks in my wake. I am lips that know only candy kisses and the burlesque bussing of Barbie. I sail towards the edge of my precipice saluting midsummer’s blazing sun, as she glides below the western woods to languid repose. I rest there, assured her forty winks will render me red hot and sticky by nap-time and…
…we twitch in twilit air, cooling to violet while Nixon inhales roses for the last time. We swim sunburned shoulders in the shimmery surf glinting off the rising crescent. We dry, flake and molt our sunbathed suits. We are pre-SPF, pre-cancerous and Vitamin D efficient. We are sweet and sweaty auras of baby oil commingled with Coppertone and chlorine. We are giddiness oscillating at a frequency unsurpassable. We are night peepers peeping and bull frogs croaking. We are fireflies switching our intermittent glow to full-on high beams, mimicking the anticipatory excitement of courtship ritual. And like a pitcher on the mound with bases loaded, we are wound up. We are nine innings of pent-up, pre-adolescent vigor ready to let loose and…
…you are here to play. Your game is RCK, its barbaric acronym defining simple rules—RUN, CATCH, KISS. You are one of the rag tag gang—half-matched—girls and boys. You are not pretending at chivalry so boys go first. You run! RUN! And you hide! HIDE! YOU’RE ON BASE! You-a, can’t-a, catch meeeeee! You say ME, ME!! And plead CATCH ME! And squeal PLEEEEEZE, PUHLEEEEEZE! You are a fast, flexible filly frolicking towards one kind of safety or another. You buck, you dodge, and…
…she prances near the lasso. She invites it. She plays at surrender, then vanishes like the gamine trace of a ghost. She dreams—catch me, catch me not, and wishes—catch me, catch me not. Neigh, neigh, not today. She contemplates like falling daisy petals, each of two possible futures, an expanse as far and wide as an August afternoon. And just like that, she is caught, lickety-split. Quick as whip she is smacked on the lips, percussive and abrupt, as the crack of a bat hitting a homer. She is cheeks flaming, ignited by fiery embers and she erupts, as volcanic as Venus. She is captured and released, faster than swatting a mosquito and…
…they are fireflies flickering lazily after the exultant rush towards nightfall. They grow quiet when the tree frogs hush. They comply when the clanging of the north bell calls them in to bunk beds and bedtime. They meander, boys in this screen door banging shut, and girls through that one, to the incendiary hurrrrunnng BAZUHT BTT of the neon yellow bug zapper. They slurp lukewarm milk and dunk soggy cookies. They peer and gawk through crudely carved holes in knotty plywood at fuzzy summer-sweet peaches uninhibitedly slapping towels on backsides and spitting Aquafresh. They don’t try hard on either side of their divide to camouflage curiosity—their simultaneous craving and cringing. They giggle and flush by flashlight at juicy bits of Judy Blume, while next door they are still madder for MAD than Playboys. They are on both sides of ten, poised at the meridian. With lights out and pillows plumped, they surrender to dreaminess in a language they only begin to recognize.
Sarah Figlio, ©2014.
The challenge was to write a first-kiss poem. I find it apt to share the story of my first kiss at age ten with my own two at age ten seemingly lightyears away from their’s. The greatest thing about this challenge was that we were gonna perform it at an open mic. I was petrified…as a PTSD, public speaking phobic this seemed unimaginable to me. Yet, I did it and conquered and reclaimed another part of my voice. Thanks for reading today!