(Inspired by Gustav Klimt)

The kiss is nectar-filled
skin wrapped over a corpse.

It stands still in the mouth like
a crouching tiger at a motionless
midday stream.

The kiss knows that figures are
keeping watch. As tarantulas scuttle
underfoot, it cracks apart like stepped on
craw fish shells.

Petite. Pink. Long and patient. Stingless
and vaporizing. The difference between
waiting and enduring.

The kiss was never meant to be a hand
shake or a goodbye. Like a moose, 5,343 feet
below a canopy of charred balsam, scarfing wild
shrooms, with instant knowing, The kiss bustles.

Plunged into the minerals like an ice ax. Breaking them
open upon a bed of prismatic sands. Submerged in
asteroids. The kiss. Colliding intentions. Like the wind nudging
two chimes. Existing together as they must.

George Cassidy Payne is originally from the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York. He now lives and works in the City of Rochester, New York. George is a poet, photographer, essayist, professor of philosophy, and social worker. George’s poetry has been included in a variety of  journals and magazines, including Chronogram Magazine, Allegro Poetry Journal, Mojave Heart, the Red Porch Review, Albany Up the River Poets Journal, Teahouse, The Adirondack Almanac, The Mindful Word, Talker of the Town, Pulsar, Moria Poetry Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, and many others.