Kissing in Public

by Phillippa Yaa De Villiers

I want to see more lovers
kissing in public,
their mouths open,
eyes laughing,
hand-clasped buttocks
breast-to-breast,
naked love sandwich
garnished with clothes.
I like to see that
electric charge
as loving eyes cross the
silken
swathes of hungry air
to be together;
as lovers rise from the park pillow
sweep non-existent grass off each other’s
backs and bottoms,
hands all over
each other.
I want to see more lovers
creating islands of intimacy
in the cold sea of
eyes cynical
eyes prying
eyes envying:

waves throw themselves up to the highest cliffs
then retreat, disillusioned, to their sulky, salty self;
doomed to remain
on the continental shelf.