A Kiss Unrelinquished Poem by Lonnie Hicks

A glint of light
flashed through her eye
flecks of dust too
floated there.

Words echoed in the air
and I could hear
her welling tear
howl like a sorrowful wind
in eyes which grew
narrow
from the question
which hung in
the thick gap
between question posited
and response given.

I was
a dust mote;
reeling
tumbling
flaming
speck
fleeing
exposed to those eyes
now glistening
screeching
from where the soul cries.

Cornered there
in the oval edge
the exposed tear,
slid across
to the oval end,
the eye
narrowed it
to a slither-tear,
falling down
across the cheek bone
to the gray floor
in poor, dark light,
in a room carpeted
with unspoken words
and nuances.

A tear falls
in uncertain
circumstance;
mid-sentence,
amid vague meanings
and I
could not then
know my own answer
to her question:
“Do you think we should break up? ”

I started, hesitated, saying 'I do...'
pausing, arrested by that water-fall
in cheek-bone flight,
it’s watery oval quavering.
I had no time to think
or react
so swiftly it fell;
my melodies unhinge;

my heart slices;
my soul shrivels, quivering;
I am across the tiny space,
the fallen tear at stake
sentences to complete.

'Not want to'
'Not want to'
my voice said
touching close
the droplet
which now retracts;
its meaning
transformed
in origin-
now un-crying.

'My soul can not stand, '
I said, 'to see the eyes
I love
grow
tears.'

There is nothing
more intimate
than tears shed,
retrieved
and shared;
touched by finger-tips;

There is no longer time
than time trapped
between
I love you
and I love you not;

no kisses sweeter
than those
which remain;
unrelinquished.