Sunday Scribblings-Kiss

When my husband and I got engaged, my mother gave me a coffee mug that said "Kissin' don't last...cookin' do." Since I was only 19 years old, she was obvisouly trying to warn me that the fun bits of a relationship (like kissing!) don't endure with as much stability as the not so fun bits (like cooking!) I was not pleased with the gift at that time, and now, more than 30 years later, I have to say she was wrong. Kissing does last. It's different of course - it's laden with history for one thing. It carries the memories of all the wonderful, heartbreaking, angry, delicious moments that have occurred while you've been setting up housekeeping, raising children and pets, working, cleaning, buying groceries and cooking! It's just as poet Steve Scafidi writes in his poem Prayer for A Marriage -kisses now may not be the "first wild surprising ones," but they are the ones that make the "sadnesses we have known go away for awhile."

Prayer for A Marriage

Steve Scafidi

For Kathleen

When we are old one night and the moon

arcs over the house like an antique

China saucer and the teacup sun

follows somewhere far behind

I hope the stars deepen to a shine

so bright you could read by it

if you liked and the sadnesses

we will have known go away

for awhile - in this hour or two

before sleep - and that we kiss

standing in the kitchen not fighting

gravity so much as embodying

its sweet force, and I hope we kiss

like we do today knowing so much

good is said in this primitive tongue

from the wild first surprising ones

to the lower dizzy ten thousand

infintely slower ones - and I hope

while we stand there in the kitchen

making tea and kissing, the whistle

of the teapot wakes the neighbors.