The Archipelago of Kisses

We live in a modern society. Husbands and wives don’t grow

on trees like in the old days. So where

does one find love? When you’re sixteen it’s easy – like being

unleashed with a credit card

in a department store of kisses. There’s the first kiss.

The sloppy kiss. The peck.

The sympathy kiss. The backseat smooch. The  we shouldn’t

be doing this  kiss. The  but your lips

taste so good  kiss. The  bury me in an avalanche of tingles  kiss.

The  I wish you’d quit smoking  kiss.

The  I accept your apology, but you make me really mad

sometimes  kiss. The  I know

your tongue like the back of my hand  kiss. As you get older,

kisses become scarce. You’ll be driving

home and see a damaged kiss on the side of the road,

with its purple thumb out. Now if you

were younger, you’d pull over, slide open the mouth’s ruby door

just to see how it fits. Oh where

does one find love? If you rub two glances together, you get

a smile; rub two smiles, you get

a spark; rub two sparks together and you have a kiss. Now

what? Don’t invite the kiss

to your house and answer the door in your underwear. It’ll get

suspicious and stare at your toes.

Don’t water the kiss with whiskey. It’ll turn bright pink and explode

into a thousand luscious splinters,

but in the morning it’ll be ashamed and sneak out of your body

without saying goodbye,

and you’ll remember that kiss forever by all the little cuts it left

on the inside of your mouth. You must

nurture the kiss. Dim the lights, notice how it illuminates

the room. Clutch it to your chest,

wonder if the sand inside every hourglass comes from a special

beach. Place it on the tongue’s pillow,

then look up the first recorded French kiss in history: beneath

a Babylonian olive  tree in 1300 B.C.

But one kiss levitates above all the others. The intersection

of function and desire. The  I do  kiss.

The  I’ll love you through a brick wall  kiss.  Even when

I’m dead, I’ll swim through the earth

like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones .