Joseph O. Legaspi

“The Kisser’s Handbook (The Sensitive Male Chapter) "

A peck is a red poppy.
Several is a bird feeding on your hand.

The first kiss is the customary rose given,
a bouquet received by two.

On the right side of her mouth, she is your mother.
On the left side, she’s the sister you never had.

A simmering moist kiss is cherry pie.

Awkward and dry is love;

If delicate yet firm, a kiss is Ophelia’s resuscitation from drowning;
Hurried and open-mouthed, moths flutter out of her body.

A kiss that glides smoothly has the pleasant lightness of tea.
If it smudges, prepare yourself for children.

A kiss that roams the curving of the lips,
the tongue still tracing the slopes
even without her near is a poet’s muse.

When bitten on the lower lip—I am your peach—
and if she is left there biting, dangling, she’ll burn the tree.

When she’s sucking your lips as if through a straw
she wants you in her.

Never quite touching, lips bridged
by warm clouds of breath, speak in recitation:
Because I am the ocean in which she cannot swim,
my lover turned into the sea,

Or, cradle her in the cushions of your lips
and let her sleep, lovingly, in the pink.”
― Joseph O. Legaspi