Guernica Magazine

The Summons

The kiss you really want to talk about. The post The Summons appeared first on Guernica.
Photo by Darren Gantt via Flickr.

Suppose you made a taxonomy of kisses in their vast variety: the kiss on the cheek of a child heading out for the day, the kiss on the forehead you give a friend departing after she’s unburdened herself in a long conversation, the complex vocabulary of kisses between the long-coupled, who signal through them a host of things. But those aren’t the kisses you really want to study.

Could you name the kisses of lovers, distinguishing their nuances, the shades of passion? You would like to do the research for this. But then you realize it’s what you

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