behind the ears

just kids

Macaulay Culkin and Anna Chlumsky in My Girl (1991)

kiss rehearsal one

Dust of deep-closeted overcoats, 
unsought whiff of long-hemmed wool,
the semi-dark of thin-slatted light 
where we practice the thing 
they call necking: bump 
foreheads, giggle-slide past 
noses, pucker, graze, 
our lips chapped tight.

While our folks on the patio 
clink cocktails and conspire 
to marry us off, collect a clutch 
of grandkids, so we imagine,
as yet no notices nor bells,
just the bare thrill of callow flesh 
and truant age—soft cartilage 
the only hard, behind the ears
our only wet.