First Kiss

Afterwards you had that drunk, drugged look

my daughter used to get, when she had let go

of my nipple, her mouth gone slack and her eyes

turned vague and filmy, as though behind them

the milk was rising up to fill her

whole head, that would loll on the small

white stalk of her neck so I would have to hold her

closer, amazed at the sheer power

of satiety, which was nothing like the needing

to be fed, the wild flailing and crying until she fastened

herself to me and made the seal tight

between us, and sucked, drawing the liquid down

and out of my body; no, this was the crowning

moment, this giving of herself, knowing

she could show me how helpless

she was—that’s what I saw, that night when you

pulled your mouth from mine and

leaned back against a chain-link fence,

in front of a burned-out church: a man

who was going to be that vulnerable,

that easy and impossible to hurt.