I lean against the wall<\/p>\n
inside the probation office.<\/p>\n
Joint is packed.<\/p>\n
Reprobates are jacked.<\/p>\n
I read Walt Whitman<\/p>\n
at random,<\/p>\n
waiting for a form<\/p>\n
to set me free.<\/p>\n
It’s come to that:<\/p>\n
a form for freedom<\/p>\n
in a democracy.<\/p>\n
Can you believe<\/p>\n
they want it in longhand?<\/p>\n
I look to my right:<\/p>\n
Two couples<\/p>\n
make out<\/p>\n
before their<\/p>\n
meetings and UAs,<\/p>\n
wearing her Pink sweatpants,<\/p>\n
his black hoodies,<\/p>\n
both clutching phones.<\/p>\n
Nothing surprises<\/p>\n
me in here,<\/p>\n
not the sparkled jeans<\/p>\n
nor the man reading Macbeth,<\/p>\n
not the dog food coupons,<\/p>\n
nor the reek of fish.<\/p>\n
Okay, this making out does,<\/p>\n
these two<\/i> couples!<\/p>\n
It’s like that poem,<\/p>\n
\u201cKissing,\u201d by Dorianne Luax.<\/p>\n
Kissing is sometimes<\/p>\n
all we have<\/p>\n
to stave off extinction,<\/p>\n
to undermine Stalin,<\/p>\n
to hang from<\/p>\n
a thread over the abyss.<\/p>\n
Laux writes:<\/p>\n
They are kissing they are doing what they have to do It’s the one human act<\/p>\n they can’t take from us.<\/p>\n Even in here:<\/p>\n florescent lights,<\/p>\n plastic chairs,<\/p>\n gray carpet.<\/p>\n It’s an act of<\/p>\n secret rebellion,<\/p>\n or smack dab<\/p>\n in the open,<\/p>\n face to face,<\/p>\n in our faceless times,<\/p>\n not a reckoning,<\/p>\n but a puckering.<\/p>\n I read another line from Walt.<\/p>\n Walt writes a lot about kissing<\/p>\n but never uses the word.<\/p>\n I watch the couples,<\/p>\n the two women<\/p>\n angled toward me,<\/p>\n their eyes are closed.<\/p>\n One has her feet,<\/p>\n out of flip flops.<\/p>\n She is barefoot<\/p>\n and kissing<\/p>\n in the probation office,<\/p>\n and I am no poet<\/p>\n if I don’t write<\/p>\n a poem with that image.<\/p>\n Because it is<\/p>\n a unique image<\/p>\n in the annals<\/p>\n of American literature<\/p>\n and I will take that.<\/p>\n It’s free.<\/p>\n It might even set me free.<\/p>\n A woman emerges<\/p>\n from behind the glass,<\/p>\n long blonde hair,<\/p>\n on taxpayer’s time.<\/p>\n She looks at me,<\/p>\n smiles, turns my way.<\/p>\n We knew each other,<\/p>\n in my other life.<\/p>\n We almost dated.<\/p>\n We would have kissed.<\/p>\n She asks me<\/p>\n how I’m doing.<\/p>\n I show her the cover<\/p>\n of Leaves of Grass<\/i>,<\/p>\n she nods,<\/p>\n and walks out the door.<\/p>\n One couple has stopped<\/p>\n making out.<\/p>\n The other has not.<\/p>\n I return to Walt.<\/p>\n He’s in love with<\/p>\n democracy now.<\/p>\n No American poet<\/p>\n writes about a love for<\/p>\n democracy anymore.<\/p>\n But more kissing<\/p>\n might help us survive it.<\/p>\n (If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.) <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I lean against the wall inside the probation office. Joint is packed. Reprobates are jacked. I read Walt Whitman at random, waiting for a form to set me free. It’s come to that: a form for freedom in a democracy. Can you believe they want it in longhand? I look to my right: Two couples […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,42],"tags":[20,420,6,52,13,190,421,422,88,253,364],"class_list":["post-3321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-poetry","tag-astoria","tag-kissing","tag-matt-love","tag-oregon","tag-oregon-coast","tag-oregon-poetry","tag-poem","tag-poet","tag-poetry","tag-probation","tag-probation-poem","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3323,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321\/revisions\/3323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nto begin the world again. Nothing
\ncan stop them…<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\nto survive the worst<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n