Excerpt
THE KISS V-J Day, Times Square, 1945
Famous and faceless as those who raised
the flag on Suribachi, they lean forever
in black and white: the randy gob, fresh
from sailing back alive, who's just found
something better to kiss than pavement,
and the nurse whose sheer-white-stockinged legs
show trim as any pin-up girl's.
Bent backward and off balance in his arms,
she catches what he's found the nerve to pitch,
her right knee bending slightly
from his boyish ardor. Passers-by await
the finish, poised to applaud or cheer,
but the two go on and on, picked up by Life
to show us what we fight for. Are they lovers?
Strangers? Is the whole thing being posed
for the Sunday supplement?
We cannot know.
The show ends here, as did our latest dance
to deaths slick croon, with the kind of kiss
that Bogart planted on Bacall. The rest,
as we're sometimes told, belongs to history,
off camera, clearing its rheumy throat.