The Kiss

The last time I was home I gave my mother a kiss,
And somewhere, sometime long ago, she kissed my great grandmother,
Who kissed her brother just before he set off to fight in World War one,
And although he died a few days before the end of the war,
He had kissed a young French girl in a bar and they said that they would meet someday after the troubles,
And the French girl kissed her father and told him of the Scotsman whom she liked,
And years before her father had kissed the girl’s mother in a little hotel in London,
And that night they had gone to see Charles Dickens as he read from Great Expectations,
And the girl’s mother kissed Dickens and said thank you for the story,
And told him that her boyfriend had just asked her to be his wife,
And after that night's reading Dickens gave his daughter a goodnight kiss,
And his daughter kissed her pillow and dreamed of her one true love.


bs2014