What Lips My Lips Have Kissed

Poem it was based on:1

"What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,2

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain3

Under my head till morning; but the rain4

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh5

Upon the glass and listen for reply;6

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain7

For unremembered lads that not again8

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.9

Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,10

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,11

Yet know its boughs more silent than before:12

I cannot say what loves have come and gone;13

I only know that summer sang in me14

A little while, that in me sings no more." 15

-Edna St. Vincent Millay16

My Story:17

Kathleen sits in her quiet den on a cold, rainy evening. A fire provides the only light for the room thick with memories and ghosts. The box that contained her tried heart was open. Her love was scattered about on the table. Listening intently to the melodies of the rain on her window, Kathleen is fourteen. She stands awkwardly in a room crowded with music and young lovers on a warm summer night. She moves to the rhythm of the raindrops – her first slow dance. She looks up and knows she will never forget. Zachary.18

Kathleen closes her eyes a moment and opens them. She searches the darkness for a release. Her eyes rest upon a ribbon. Red. “Tie this in your hair for me Kathleen. Never take it out so long as I love you – so long as you love me.” She is twenty-one. He believes in love. It is a bright morning in early August, the kind you never want to end. She hopes it never ends. Timothy. She can’t bring herself to go to his November funeral. She lays the ribbon to its rest on a frigid March midnight.19

The fire burns steady. Kathleen stands carefully and walks to the window drenched in nature’s tears. She stares into her reflection. She is eighteen. She sits fixing her hair in the looking glass. He stands behind her. Bold, dark, powerful. She stays the misty May nightfall in his nameless arms. He leaves her in the May rain.20

Kathleen turns away from the window and returns to her throne of regret. Her right hand falls upon her left – her finger upon a gold ring. She is twenty-seven. He believes in her. She’s in white and walks ever so slowly toward her summer. He smiles. She smiles…21

It’s raining. Kathleen reaches for a tissue to dry her weathered face. Her arm brushes a flag. She is thirty. He is a patriot. She receives a letter on a frozen December sunrise. It has been December for forty-one years.22

Kathleen looks at her hands. She removes a gold ring. She is seventy-one. She is alone with her ghosts. She is alone with her loves. She is alone with her winter.23