April 17th
	lisa zimmerman
	IN THE BEGINNING OF DANGEROUS
	The first time a man put his tongue in my mouth I was just twelve and he, at nineteen, rode a motorcycle and smelled like work and dirt and beer and I felt something fall down or maybe faint inside my body somewhere under the breasts I was imagining into a lacy white bra I might have one day and whatever was fainting or falling there kept getting up again to meet the movement of his warm lips, his teeth clicking against mine, his tongue a sweet fish, his hands pulled me closer, he thought I was fifteen or sixteen, the party around us faded and went out like a lamp as his fingers brushed along the edge of my shirt, I felt his jeans tight under my palms, I was rising and falling and rising and falling and alive and aware nothing really hard or terrible had happened to me yet (First appeared in Paper Street, Spring 2005)
	about the poem
	I had been talking to a friend about that first kiss, how old we were and so forth. I told her the first line of the poem in conversation and the poem followed later in one swift free-write, hence the absence of punctuation at the end of the poem.
	about the poet
	Lisa Zimmerman grew up in a military family, graduating from SHAPE American High School in Belgium. She received her BA in English and History from Colorado State University and her MFA in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis. Her poetry and fiction has appeared in Indiana Review, The Atlanta Review, The Colorado Review, and many other publications and anthologies. She has published two chapbooks, including Traveling Among the Animals (Pudding House Publications, 2002), and a full-length book, How the Garden Looks from Here (Snake Nation Press, 2005), which won the 2004 Violet Reed Hass Poetry Award. She has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Lisa teaches composition and creative writing at the University of Northern Colorado and has been a resident artist with Young Audiences of Colorado since 1997.
	Lisa Zimmerman's website		Colorado poets
	Colorado Poetry Calendar		CPA homepage
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