The First Girl I Kissed | Becca Carson

The first girl I kissed pushed
me against the serrated bricks
same color as her busted lip.
Transfer student.

Eyes familiar with
darkness akin to
Midwestern stormcell—
the untitled blue I like best.

I counted the seconds after
she backed away, expecting 
a bright flash to unzip
the sky above us and

burn through asbestos ceiling tiles 
shielding the girls’ 
bathroom from direct 
divine supervision

and send us both running like
oil painted Adam and Eve— the first 
season of Naked and Afraid— with nothing
but fig leaves to cover their shame.

The first girl I kissed leaned against
the sturdy row of stained porcelain
automatic sinks and didn’t flinch when
the water turned on and splashed her freckled hands

she looked up and laughed like there was no eternity
to be afraid of and she cupped my chin with her
dripping hand and kissed me again
on purpose

like we had just stripped the forbidden fruit
down to its shriveled pit and centered it
in a slingshot aimed skyward like 
COME AND GET US

Becca Carson is a high school English and creative writing teacher and runs two high school literary magazines with my students. Their first full-length book of poems, Flight Path, was published in a small run of less than 500 hand stitched copies by Foothills Publishing, a small press in upstate New York, and is now out of print. Their latest collection of work is in the final stages and is loosely arranged around themes of illness and loss, Scottish lore, the hazards of being female, and the real-life unraveling of family secrets disguised by Southern decorum. Becca has work published in Juxtaprose, Cagibi, and Mamalode. They live in Missoula, MT with their wife and kids and Marla Singer the Great Dane.