"The Kiss" by Pete Mladinic

Go on, give him a kiss.

--But I can’t kiss a corpse.

It’s your father.

--Not my father, though it looks like him.

This is your chance. Soon we’ll close

The lid, take the casket out to the limo

Wagon, to the cemetery. Say goodbye.

Kiss your father goodbye.

You look like him, remind me of him.

The undertaker goes on, talkative

In this parlor dream as he was in life,

Say, my sister’s backyard years ago

Where we met. He was always handsome

Except the last couple of times,

The last at our niece’s wedding party

On a patio in Newport overlooking the beach

Of chilly salt water, the rocky surf.

Then he himself died, is gone now,

His wife’s first summer as a widow.

I wonder if one or both daughters

Went to his open casket, leaned

And kissed his handsome mouth,

His dark Mediterranean good looks gone

By then. Did it look like him?

He never failed to mention my father.

You remind me of your father. Here

In the parlor of memory, his undertaker

Hand on my shoulder, his voice

Hushed. Kiss your father.

--That’s not my father.

If I touched his lips to mine..

Many things I could have done,

But not then and there.