I’ll never truly know
why your tongue entered my mouth
when we parted in the hotel where you were staying
after we had wandered the city as friends,
keeping the proper distance between us.
Suddenly I thought, in that moment,
that you had set a date for a future meeting,
that you had inaugurated a no-man’s-land,
a kind of in-between kingdom, perhaps,
where one might savor your moss in fine detail.
You kissed me like a friend,
I, the outsider, the monster,
and you — the whispering trespasser.
Who knows whom you had kissed,
from whom you were parting then.
I was the chance taster of a blissful instant,
the one who suddenly found in his mouth
a surprise aftertaste of farewell
under the southern sub-skies.
