First Kiss by Dick Westheimer

First Kiss

You – like lemons
I – like apples.

Each morning
I pull a ripe apple
from the bowl,

place it on the same cutting board
on which you sliced
your lemon.

You a lemon
for your morning tea

I an apple
for my breakfast
sliced in a puddle of lemon juice

Their flavors mingle in my mouth –
our first kiss of the day.

*

Dick Westheimer lives in rural southwest Ohio. He is a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist. His poems have appeared or are upcoming in Whale Road Review, Tony Seed, Gyroscope Review, Minyan, Rattle, Stone Poetry Quarterly, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, and Cutthroat. His chapbook, A Sword in Both Hands, Poems Responding to Russia’s War on Ukraine, is published by SheilaNaGig. More at dickwestheimer.com