Our poet today Dominic James promises Summer, as Springtime, light and warm, playfully lifts her sunlit skirts in ‘A kiss’, on Day 543 of the daily poems …
A kiss
There mingled in the mild air
wood smoke and Coco Chanel,
notes of mandarin a hint
of Damask Rose,
the label said.
The black doors of a tavern,
hedgerows and the flagstone corner
for me hold there her kiss
that came from nowhere
nothing, her mouth quicksilver
remembered music
a liquid seal of contact,
her lips pressed soft to mine
and Springtime, light and warm,
lifted her sunlit skirts
on hills seamed-in with flowers.
I bent my head to hers and said
some small thing into her hair,
from doubt released, made certain
when I lie down by the river
with the rushes close around
she knows I will remember
in the moment of a kiss
what it is to be alive
in the pleasure of a woman.
Dominic James
From Pilgrim Station, a Dominic James collection published by SPM Publications, 2016.