KISS

Honor Moore

A laugh on the landline. I went outside so I could think. I couldn’t think. What do you want to do with me? I want to take you out to dinner. A week before, a party flirt across a room. Stranger, though I knew his name. The April evening goes dark as we don’t eat, but when I spear pale green melon, he puts it in his mouth. We walk, dark, then arms and shock, tongue the ocean and suddenly my mouth was small. A wave that takes you so fast under, it could kill you. We had crossed a street. Gone inside. Not home, not anyone’s home. The whole time standing, as if I were pliable. Your tongue, he said, put it in my mouth. I had forgotten to move and I did what he asked, as if there were a way to eternity or it was important to tell very hot from very cold. That summer, in a sleeper alone on a night train through the Alps, vibration of wheel on rail, all-night shudder as if it were him beneath me, as if we had continued. April. Seventeen years ago, almost to the day.