3/ Black lips

And then . . . someone

Some stranger

white silk pirate shirt

scarlet pirate sash

pale blue eyes

asks me to dance

Dances with just me on through the night

Threads through costumed dancers on that dim lit floor

to bring me drinks from time to time

Until at last he says that now we both should sit

and rest a bit, beyond the dance floor's edge

and so we do, claim sagging sofa down by garden door

Soon he firmly turns my face toward his

with two soft hands

Kisses me on my black painted mouth

Parts my lips, pushes his tongue inside

Moves one hand down onto my black-clad breast

Then he critiques — I kiss too hard, he says

should be more yielding, should lean back, should receive

I vaguely (too much punch, perhaps, but also just distracted)

sense disapproving stare, to my surprise

from some blonde girl across the room

Though I'd not done these things before

the party, dancing, kissing, all conformed

to just exactly what I'd seen and read, in movies and in books

All seemed correct, expected — except perhaps

the sage critique of my poor kiss technique

But — his silk-clad arms still around me

Warm, embrace me there

Encircle, own me there

Right there in that dim crowded party room

Where HE, the boy I love

has shown HE does not care for me

and still is doing so, calmly ignoring me

as hours pass

Or maybe just forgetting me, my me-ness

quite gone out from his supple mind

that night, the whole night through

from where HE is

the watchful far side of that party's dark dance floor

Suddenly, the kiss instructor speaks

Don't worry about her, he says

And gestures vaguely toward the grim-faced blonde

Hey, how old are you?

I say fifteen, he widens eyes and smiles

I'm thirty-two, he says, but I look young

Then he explains the glaring blonde girl —

that she's his wife, a sister of the host

And that the host, his brother-in-law,

is just a great shy guy, just really sweet

and absolutely crazy about me

And I should just become his girlfriend

And we could also "get together" time to time . . . .

As I consider now I'm so surprised

At all of it, it all seems strange

so strange I can't pick out

the most surprising bit, the strangest part

Was it the third-hand girlfriend proposition?

The future secret get-together plan?

Apparent vibe of my availability?

My pure vanilla stupidity?

Maybe most surprised that so very little changed

after that kiss, that night

The host's supposed craziness for me? did not appear

My love for lovely HIM just kept right on, just the same

wildly, hopelessly, patently, visibly

with just enough encouragement to stay alive

(for many years, in fact, forever in a way)

Next day at school, and from then on

HIS measured liking for me, too, seemed just the same

Unchanged, it seemed, by watching my first kiss

that sultry party night