The Kiss
V-J Day, Times Square
August 14, 1945
By Wendy Mitman Clarke
When I am kissed,
I want to be kissed this way,
kissed like war is over.
I want to drop my thin body
arched like a dancer and falling
into the unknown soldier’s arms.
I want my mouth open
to the ravaged prayer
of the survivor.
When I am kissed
I want one knee folding,
forgetting all it has carried
on sensible, weary heels.
I want my eyes closed
to the bomb-lit ruins of innocence,
the revelers in the street
who stagger and dance and cry.
When I am kissed
I want to be kissed this way,
so that for a moment at least
we yield to the wreckage of peace.
Wendy Mitman Clarke (Maryland) has published nonfiction in River Teeth, Smithsonian, Preservation, and National Parks. She’s the former executive editor of Chesapeake Bay Magazine, and her book of essays Window on the Chesapeake: The Bay, Its People and Places was published in 2002 (Howell Press and The Mariners’ Museum). This is among are her first poems for publication and will be printed in The Delmarva Review, in October 2015.
The Spy is pleased to reproduce the following from The Delmarva Review as part of our partnership with the Eastern Shore Writers Association Education Foundation. with permission from the Review and the author, Wendy Mitman Clarke.
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Cheryl Somers Aubin says
This is an amazing poem! I love the lines: “Bomb-lit ruin of innocence” and “the wreckage of peace.” absolutely wonderful!
Thank you.
Bill Gourgey says
A gem! A celebration of (and plea for) peace and love that is as relevant today as it was seventy years ago. Maybe more so.