Kissing a Woman All Over Her Face
By James Parsons

Greedy, hungry, devouring.
Needy, grasping, stealing.
Learning, but not the right lessons.

At first, spontaneous. Hold her in her entirety. Hands and arms, two bands tightening around her, too thin to envelope Enough. Legs intertwined are occupied with themselves. Eyes too dark and too close to focus. So lips are left to seek out the rest of her. The peak of her brow, the eyelids shut against the onslaught taste like robin's eggs, the hint of bone under her dimples, the conch shell labyrinth of her ears, the hair which is just like having a hair in your mouth, but it's her hair and so it's all necessary. "What are you Doing?" she says. I am studying, memorizing. If she goes missing, I will give the police sketch artist her description like a blind man. "Her face tastes round," I will say.

She swooned. I swooned.

Weeks later, we are still there, still living in each other's space. The lights are still dark, and I return to my old haunts (brow, chin, ear, lips), recognizing the paths and the stops; the roads once less traveled by are now thoroughfares. And I devour again her face and skin and mouth, and I mouth the words that have brought us here, and I am still so hungry. And while I'm chewing this over, I find my arms and legs and hands and lips are emptied.

She unswooned.

Give me a mound of clay. Let me press it into my face, and the impression left will be the contours of her face, which fit so snugly there. Let me press that clay into my chest, wrap my too thin bands around it, and I will squeeze until that clay dissolves into the air.