Neighborhood Television | Olivia J Kiers

Their kiss is blue, two faces

fish-bowled in the front window. 

Lips part, releasing speech in air 

bubbles, like a strand of pearls—

24-frames-per-second love 

pantomimed in lowered gazes, 

quick glances. In that house 

scripts are always silent.

Sometimes, it is even shadow-theater

played behind a curtain, glimpses only

of radiant sequins—footlights 

darting the well-trod edge 

of the windowsill.

But tonight we watch in Technicolor,

this front window like a drive-in movie. 

Red the sky. Black eyes dart.

Lavender haze. Blue kisses.

She raises a marionette wrist,

finger poised, wires gleaming.

He is a hand-puppet—can only 

lunge and hold her tight. 

But it must have been enough.

We watch them fade to black. Passion 

lingers, fizz on the street, ozone air.

A spark threatens to electrify passers-by.

Olivia J. Kiers is a museum professional based near Worcester, MA. From 2018-2020 she was a poetry co-editor for Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, and her poetry has appeared most recently in Rust + Moth, Tilde, and Thin Air Online. Her art criticism can be read in Boston Art Review, Art New England, Big Red & Shiny, and other New England arts publications, and she is a catalogue essayist for the Art Center Gallery at Anna Maria College in Paxton, MA.