I'm amazed at the ways poets can describe things. And I love finding poets I've never heard of. I had a poem stashed in my email that fits both of these and I rediscovered it today.
Because I cannot remember my first kiss
by Roger Bonair-Agardbut I remember sitting alone on the brown
couch in my grandmother’s living room,
couch whose cushion covers were of velvet
and the color of dark rust, or dried blood
—and sewn by the tailor from up the block,
the same one who made me my first light blue
suit two years earlier
And I sat there running my hands back
and forth
over the short smooth hairs of the fabric
and understanding what touch meant
for the first time—not touch, the word,
as in don’t touch the hot stove or don’t
touch your grandfather’s hats but touch
like Tom Jones was singing it right then
on the television, with a magic that began
in his hips, swiveled the word and pushed
it out through his throat into some concert
hall somewhere as a two-syllabled sprite,
so that women moaned syllables back in return.
I just love the word choice and the way he describes sitting on a couch. What I thing to describe! And I have a thing for poems whose title serves as the first line. Is that weird? Ah, poetry...
Please check out the rest of this gem at Poets.org. And definitely check out the Poetry Friday round-up at Mainely Write.
photo credit: foka kytutr via photopin cc
