we were getting married!
Odd, given the facts,
we don't speak and
I don't love you
and you don't love me
and we're both married
to others. A groomsman
was helping me with my tux,
my carnation boutonniere
and I thought wait a minute!\
I don't even know you!
We haven't even dated,
or necked, or held hands,
hell, I don't even know
your last name and now
this whole thing's fate,
odd, isn't it?, I'm almost
ashamed, my only thought
was what do we do
when we kiss? I mean,
since we've never kissed?
And this wasn't about you
or me but the congregation,
those people waiting for us
to seal the deal?
Would a simple
peck on the lips do?
Or something more intimate?,
a suggestive brush of wet
softness, or one of those
histrionic dipsy-doodles?
A real lollapalooza, a passionate
tongue-swimming circus!
But it was a kiss of shame--
shame that I did not want
to kiss you, that I did not
find you kissable or
attractive and of course
knowing that you found me
repulsive, a hideous wretch,
but wouldn't admit it, not
at the threshold of our joining,
yet knowing this was stupid,
that this little moment
was such a clear sign
of how our marriage
would unfold, a passionless
arrangement, a quotidian
agreement to honor
each other's schedules
and machinations. And how,
I wanted to know, does one
kiss another bride in front of
one's wife? But again, that had
been arranged. This was more
like Judas and Jesus
squaring off for their mythic
moment in Gethsemane,
a kiss neither of them
wanted either, a kiss of
sacrament and shame,
a kiss of indifference
in some passion play,
the way a kiss should
never be. As we approached
the altar I watched the candles
flickering, the smoke curling
into curlicues, the brassy cross
shimmering. I could not
look at you in your dress
of white roses or listen
to the prayer of the pastor,
I could only think of
the fate that awaited us,
ambivalence, disregard,
sealed not with a kiss
but the awful knowing
of that kiss.
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