meet me in front of a jazz club
in new orleans; there i'll kiss you

hard. you have been lover
to me through lives upon deaths, your fingers

spread in my hair, your demolition kiss
a wrecking ball through love affairs

& marriages. but that night, before i knew
your kiss so well, it was & we were two martinis drunk

one after the other; the steering wheel biting
my ribs, my hands clutching at anything

under the headrest behind you. i recall being surprised
the bar was still standing when we emerged:

having spent a lifetime of breath in that one kiss,
how could any of the things of this world remain standing.

Jennifer Woodworth is a poet living in Virginia. She had almost finished her MFA in poetry from Old Dominion University when her daughter was born. Consequently, Jennifer will still need that one lit class and the defense forever more. She just won the 2009 AROHO Orlando Prize for Sudden Fiction. She has a million hobbies but writing is what makes her jump out of bed in the morning.