First kiss. First love. Fassely and Mariama in adoration, lounging on a pirogue drifting along the Niger River. Reminds me of a beautiful Mary Oliver poem, “Not Anyone Who Says”:
Not anyone who says, “I’m going to be
careful and smart in the matters of love,”
who says, “I’m going to choose slowly,”
but only those lovers who didn’t choose at all
but were, as it were, chosen
by something invisible and powerful and uncontrollable
and beautiful and possibly even
unsuitable–
only those know what I’m talking about
in this talking about love.