Clearing Rapture
I was heading to the 63rd Street bus after dark
in late August 65 when the city sky flashed,
sparking illumination of everything at once.
It must have come from the kiss I’d encountered
just a few minutes before while saying goodbye
to a Chicago style Roman beauty, she with so much
starry deep dark excitement in her eyes,
drawing me into her embrace at the side door
of her family’s brick three bedroom bungalow.
She was recovering from an emergency
appendectomy and was wrapped in folds
like those always worn by the Mother of God.
Her almost raven hair aimed here and there
and her slippered feet looked big and fuzzy
but her smile, a bit happier than Lisa del Giocondo’s,
grew with an intent that was easy to follow.
We were between junior and senior year
of high school with nothing but two bus rides
separating us, that and differing views
on almost everything, over and done before college.
Yet, after we kissed that night, the exhilaration
that hit me is with me to this day, an exquisite
ecstasy reliable enough for me to hold onto,
a gift that is useful like a paperweight or doorstop.
