Literary

It is perfectly OK to be eighteen and still think that kissing is gross.

French kissing is gross.

You know all about the mechanics and the bliss of poets,

but certainly that has nothing to do with her.

She is a senior and so tremendously cool that she has already given up black, cigarettes, and "disaffected Swattie existentialism,"

and wears pink silk saris, and yellow, and walks around McCabe barefoot.

You are sorting out your required reading from the end-of-semester piles in McCabe basement.

She laughs at you for bothering when you are pass-fail in all five classes;

her saris smell of other people's smoke.

You tell her this is a twisted form of penance, and you don't mind, really.

Twisted? Once she was so angry she put her hand through a wall.

You see the plaster crumbs, and her hand not twisting.

When she asks if she can kiss you, you say yes.

It is still gross. You apologize under your breath, maybe eighteen is not old enough for kissing;

when she asks if she may touch you, in the basement of McCabe, you say yes.

Really her spit is sort of interesting. It tastes like metal.

You tell her this, and she looks down and says, "The beer, I guess."

Her spit is more interesting than beer, but the poets have not equipped you to say so.

It is all an experiment anyway, you agree; modern lit is shelved upstairs and the orange carpet is hurting more than your eyes, and she is in love with her boyfriend, who lives in Maine.

When she leaves you cannot stop shaking.

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