As I wake to kiss you good-morning, Ilyse, I remember
Brian Turner
Our First Kiss
…the one-that-changed-the-world-even-if-the-world-didn’t-know-it-yet kiss, curbside with your hands on my hips curling to pull me tight, my palms cupping your face tenderly, the city of New York thrumming around us, our lips sugared by White Russians but the kiss itself made sweeter by some deeper recognition, that bright and life-changing delight of two souls when they finally meet, the pure electricity of it, after years of searching and giving up on a globe spinning through the vast silence of the cosmos, and yet, this surprise, this kiss, this moonlit kiss…
Our Kiss Over The Lake of Love
…where we stood on the arched bridge at midnight, the city of Bruges asleep around us, and I knelt down, your hands trembling in my own, and this is where I offered my heart to you and the very moment I became a married man, forever, with joy in the oath of it that rings to this very hour, our kiss over the Lake of Love witnessed by a gathering of swans upon the still waters below…
Our Legal Kiss
…with a signing of documents in an office off Colonial Drive, plastic flowers threaded through a wicker arbor, the city’s gesture toward romance and ritual done in moveable façade, Kim and Vincent our witnesses, and how I lifted you in my arms, the Fun Spot with go carts and carnival games to follow, our happiness given a second childhood, a new beginning we’d share day by day…
Our Wedding Kiss
…Lake Tahoe, September, the air clear and cheering, the words spoken, flowers in flight, the laughter and dancing with our loved ones gathered, our loved ones still alive and filled with light, the day a blur of motion and love and the night’s sparks drifting up as an offering to Cygnus, constellation of the Swan, our wedding kiss the fuel that lifted the sparks higher, higher…
Our I-Won’t-Share-Them-They’re-Only-For-The-Two-Of-Us-Kisses
…the Lazy Sunday kisses, the steamy shower kisses, the backseat kisses, the theater-dark kisses, the middle-of-the-street kisses, the lavender silk kisses, the Egyptian-cotton-sheet kisses, the blown flower sweep of history kisses, the ache-in-the-muscle-and-grooving-god-damn-these-are-good kisses, followed by our erase-the-world-and-make-it-new kisses, and our soft liquid light after-kisses…
Our Airplane Kisses
…our wheels up and wheels down kisses, the ones that started all journeys and marked the coming home, kisses that book-ended our travels to the blackberry fields of England, our anniversary in Stockholm’s Grand Hotel, Istanbul’s Blue Mosque and the Golden Horn, the hilltop village of Chora in the starry Aegean, the Cave of Hercules on the Moroccan coast, tuk-tuk rides through Chang Mai and the bamboo rafting south of Myanmar, the Capela dos Ossos with its skeletal prayer toward the divine, the ruins of Rome and our nights in Paris, our London hotel and our flat in Kentish Town, the river of heaven in Kyoto and the anime digital night of Tomorrowland…
Our Difficult Kisses
…after the diagnosis, after the surgeries, the wheelchair and walker, the chemotherapy, the struggle of it all, Ilyse, heroic and beyond brave, how you fought and how you lived through it all, how I massaged coconut oil into your soles to bring some small measure of relief, some small portion of a word like pleasure, lifting your arched feet gently to my lips as I kissed them, my Queen, my lover, my Ilyse…
Our Last Kiss
…our last night of conversation, reading your poems aloud, remembering the world and all you’d done and seen, the wild love within you, the wind-blown world you’d added your brilliant signature to, your fingers and toes so chilled and tender, your body preparing you for the onward journey (not yet, please) and me, left on the shoreline of the bed, my hands trembling to the touch of your sweet face, saying I love you, my sweet sweet Ilyse, and kissing you…
The Fleeting Memory Kisses
…kisses that appear randomly and inexplicably, the kiss every film seems to end on, strangers kissing on a bench in Ireland, the couple kissing in the grocery aisle, lovers in the park, steamed windows in traffic, two figures in silhouette brought together in a kiss—and all of them you, Ilyse, kissing the world over, year after year now, painful and bittersweet every time, a ghostly echo of our love, our lips brought together…
Of course, our Good-Morning & Good-Night Kisses
…the kisses we started the day with, no matter what the hours ahead might bring, and the good-night kisses that carried us into dream, the kisses I continue to give, Ilyse, with a small locket of your ashes carried on a silver necklace, bringing you to my lips, morning and night, my love, kissing you into the day, kissing you into dream.
