Janet Rogerson
began in an area behind the two people
and Paris grew incrementally around them.
It fell soft in the arms of a dancing couple
in a cruel city, at a viperous time, when kissing—
by them—was prohibited. It moved along a vertical
line then a horizontal line pulling into a station
and stopped for the longest time among overgrown
brambles. It came during a war, in the form
of a please-God-goodbye and a thank-you-hello.
Then through a wall of mirrors, where a woman
watched it happen on the curved avenue of her selves.
This was the kiss that made its way towards them.
It was anticipated and practiced on the arms
of the teenaged both of them. It slept for a while,
woke on the lips of two others still asleep
who knew as little about it as the statue
by the famous sculptor, who carved the kiss
over the space of a whole hot month of June
then returned to the city saw the very same
kiss through his train window on another train
travelling fast away in the opposite direction.
Have you heard about the jellyfish whose
sting is so powerful it can be felt in the water
around it? This kiss was like that. It was a kiss
that began slowly, like a scene from an old old movie
by an exacting director who imagined millions
of men who’d do it again and again on his starlet,
the water surrounding them and their arms around
her, and she’d be converted to them even though
she could have anyone. The kiss travelled light
and the camera blurred in to its destination. Cut.
Janet Rogerson lives in the North West of England. She has a pamphlet with the Rialto called A Bad Influence Girl and her poems have been published in a wide range of journals. She has a PhD from the University of Manchester and co-hosts the popular Manchester Poetry reading series Poets & Players.
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