{"id":88046,"date":"2021-06-26T09:55:16","date_gmt":"2021-06-26T13:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=88046"},"modified":"2021-06-26T11:58:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-26T15:58:00","slug":"poem-1-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/poem-1-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem 1: Three Secrets, All Firsts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three Secrets, All Firsts<\/strong><\/p>\n

I met Daryl McKnight in a shack at the dump on my last day<\/p>\n

in Greeley. The moving truck was already packed with our home.<\/p>\n

What does it say that my first kiss was a goodbye kiss?<\/p>\n

Should I have seen the omen? What did I want to give away<\/p>\n

besides the awkward press of our lips? I barely remember<\/p>\n

the kiss, but can still picture the Black Widow<\/p>\n

close by in the corner of the shed. I\u2019d never seen a Black Widow before.<\/p>\n

It took years before I realized how dangerous love is.<\/p>\n

The first time I had sex, Glen and I were at a friend\u2019s apartment<\/p>\n

in El Paso\u2019s east side. We went upstairs to Baron\u2019s room<\/p>\n

and took a shower. Together. Naked. I can\u2019t remember how we ended up<\/p>\n

under that stream of water, but I remember\u00a0the shock<\/p>\n

of his penis \u2013 the first I\u2019d seen, and this one I confronted<\/p>\n

up close and in person. Do all young women find<\/p>\n

a penis a freaky animal at first?\u00a0The first time<\/p>\n

I got married, the invitation said we\u2019d marry<\/p>\n

\u201cunder the desert sky\u201d — it was January, and the willow tree in our yard<\/p>\n

was barren of leaf, so I tied a hundred colored ribbons to the branches.<\/p>\n

The breeze lifted lifted them slightly above us. No matter how much<\/p>\n

we decorate what is barren, that doesn\u2019t bring it to life. I stood apart<\/p>\n

on the patio after the ceremony and thought I just made a big mistake. <\/em><\/p>\n

Please don\u2019t tell anyone I shared this. No one needs to know<\/p>\n

I started my marriage with regrets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three Secrets, All Firsts I met Daryl McKnight in a shack at the dump on my last day in Greeley. The moving truck was already packed with our home. What does it say that my first kiss was a goodbye kiss? Should I have seen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3235,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88046"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90042,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88046\/revisions\/90042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}