And sometimes it is
loss
that we lose,

and sometimes

it is just lips. When I was


a child, I would ask my mother
to tuck me

in, wrap me tight in blankets,

make me in to a burrito.


Sometimes I would wait in bed,

pressing my body stiff, like a board,

mind like a feather, silly- setting the scene



to be seen.

So I could be wrapped.

So I could be kissed.


And what

I miss most,


is being made again.



About this poem
"This poem explores a Heraclitean idea of love, showing how, in the end, we often miss some of the most mundane things about the person lost, such as a kiss. This poem is an attempt to wiggle my toes in the stream of that kiss."
-David Tomas Martinez

About David Tomas Martinez
David Tomas Martinez is the author of "Hustle" (Sarabande Books, 2014) and the forthcoming "Crosshatched" (Sarabande Books, 2016). He is finishing his Ph.D. in poetry at the University of Houston. Martinez lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

***
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2015 David Tomas Martinez. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate