The Boy Next Door
      By JoHannah P. Green

  Grape Kiss
Breath froze in the tiny spaces in my heart,
and 36-years curled up and blew away like
rose petals in a hot July wind.
Suddenly
we were giggin' for crawdads
in the warm, wet pools of riverwater
above the falls.
You showed me how to
put the slippery grey bacon
on a number two hook and
slide it right down by the crawdad
until he grabbed it in a claw,
then flick the line up
in a lightning flash,
beaching the struggling thing
on the slick pink quartzite rocks.
We got burned to a crisp
in the afternoon sun there by the river.

I remember
we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
washed down with grape soda.
It tasted like heaven,
sweet and sensual and innocent
all in one.
Afterward we carried the bucket
straight back up the long hill
to your garage.
Four blocks straight up
that nasty old hill,
but I never did show you I was tired.
And we poked at the crawdads with little sticks
until my mom called me home.
Then you grabbed me by the shoulders
and kissed me hard on the mouth,
once, quick.
Then you were gone inside your house.

It was the first, last and only time we ever kissed,
but that ten-year-old girl has remembered
for 36 years
that first-kisses taste
like Tutti Fruitti Gum
and grape soda,
and smell like crawdads in river water.

Tonight, when my frozen breath thawed
enough to warm my blood
and rush it to my face,
I smiled and shook your hand,
as you stood beside your pretty wife,
and you smiled and shook my hand,
pleased to see me, again;
not remembering the crawdads
or me
or that wonderful kiss,
only anxious to be finished
with Parent-Teacher Conferences.