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for the queen of lapis lazuli


by M. F. Sullivan


you kissed me, once,
        kindergarten, recall--
    behind my ear.

        called        
                'bee sting',
    but to a child's small vision,
        the cosmic blue indigos
            of mauvender pain
                quenched all eternity:
                
                what that then is
                    which is now was
                        exploding all away with the terrible
                            gunshot pain of death
                    while i was lifted from my plastic seat
            with a scream of tearful pain which i did not feel making
        during which you clutched me for the first,
    first saw me, though i not you,
                                    and together we awoke,
        your eye under mine
                    refocused back
    upon a small body
            and a violet sponge
            frozen in a bag.
    
i'd seen you before
    and you'd seen me
        but you'd never kissed me until then
            there
            sitting at a table at school
            copying the shapes of the alphabet
            unconscious among my little fellows
            waiting, i suppose, for you.
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