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BUTTERFLY LANDING KISS.
All through the woodwork lesson
and through a double dose of maths,
he thinks of her, the kiss on the sports
field, the brushing of his lips on hers.
He'd almost cut his finger on a saw,
being preoccupied with thoughts of
her, her eyes through glasses, the
innocence of lilies about her, the way
she looked so surprised, he having
kissed her. Not planned, no he didn’t
plan the kiss, he was just going to talk
with her, get to know her more and
better, when the impulse to kiss, over
came him, as if some rarely seen fish
of the sea had drawn him into depths
he'd not known. He sits on the school
bus, got on before she had, looks out
the window, shy of seeing her, now
wondering what she'd day after that
kiss, her reaction. Trevor says softly
something about the Frump, he doesn't
turn, looks at the kids waiting to get
on the bus, excited, engaged in their
conversations, laughing. He is aware,
that she may be on the bus now, he is
so self obsessed, he can hear his heart
beat, thump through his chest. Trevor
next to him, talking across the aisle,
says something about her, but he isn’t
listening, stares out. He feels as if he's
under a microscope, eyes gawking at
him, words around him. Maybe others
saw the kiss? He didn’t think about that,
never gave it thought. The radio is on,
the music blares, some one is singing
about love and missing her. He relaxes
as the bus move off, senses no one is
aware of the kiss, no talk, or chatter
of it. Even Trevor, who is the vanguard
of gossip, says nothing about that at all.
John is aware she sits across the aisle,
a little bit back. He could possibly see
her, if he glanced over the top of his seat,
but he doesn't, he looks at the passing
scene, trees, hedges, fields, cottages.
He tries to calm his beating heart, the
thump seems almost audible, as if
the whole bus can hear its thump.
He closes his eyes and thinks of her,
the lips kissed, the eyes behind her
spectacles, her mouth, the way her
words were stilled by his kiss, were
drenched in her virgin mouth; he had
touched her, too. His hand had soft
touched her arm, drew her body closer
to him. She smelt of countryside, air,
and hay and fields. Her lips there were
feather soft; he could have slept there,
lay there, brushed the lips, as if a red
butterfly had landed, sought refreshment.
He reruns the kiss, in his head, plays
it over and over. She is there just across
the way; he can almost sense her eyes
on him, like feelers reaching over the
seats to touch him. He opens his eyes,
Trevor has football cards in his inky
hands, he talks of this player and that,
that football team and this, but all John
can think on is the butterfly landing kiss.
