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Shipwrecked in the Woods by Ilona Lagowski-Timoszuk

We kiss and kiss and clumsy hands of thirteen
realizing that you - a girl - have tastes and smells
and wonderings where is the yesterday of running
trails of mud and grass, and never noticing the bugs
by the rusty tire laying in the shallow brook where we
rolled our pants and waded through murkiness until our
feet were numb.

You were never soft then
                                                as you are just now.

Even when we touched then, pulling each up edges,
unaware of danger, of slipping or allowing the forest
to devour us as we munched blueberries from branches
while pretending boulders were ships and we were stranded
mid-ocean under sun and clouds and dreams and sometimes wishes.

But, now you are soft
                                                and I kiss and kiss and kiss

And your mouth is sweet and warm and I, lost in something
new, and warmth as I want to push against you and disappear

Shipwrecked
                                    and kiss and kiss.

Bio:   Ilona Lagowski-Timoszuk was born 1973 in Warsaw, Poland.   Her father relocated the family to Boston, MA in 1976.   Growing up in Boston's inner city provided Ilona with an abundance of experiences that formed the foundations of her writing.   She published her first poem at sixteen.   Ilona is currently a graduate student at University of Manchester, UK, where she is completing her Masters in Creative Writing.   Ilona has received many awards, including Florida International Writer of the Year 1994, and Poem of the Year 2006.   She has had her work published in many magazines such as Loch Raven Review, Libertine Magazine, Word Riot, and Novel Twists. Ilona presently resides in Manchester, UK. She can be reached at ilonat@tiscali.co.uk