The Unclad Soul

The Archipelago of Kisses We live in a modern society. Husbands and wives don't grow on trees, like in the old days. So where does one find love? When you're sixteen it's easy, like being unleashed with a credit card in a department store of kisses. There's the first kiss. The sloppy kiss. The peck. The sympathy kiss. The backseat smooch. The we shouldn't be doing this kiss. The but your lips taste so good kiss. The bury me in an avalanche of tingles kiss. The I wish you'd quit smoking kiss. The I accept your apology, but you make me really mad sometimes kiss. The I know your tongue like the back of my hand kiss. As you get older, kisses become scarce. You'll be driving home and see a damaged kiss on the side of the road, with its purple thumb out. If you were younger, you'd pull over, slide open the mouth's red door just to see how it fits. Oh where does one find love? If you rub two glances, you get a smile. Rub two smiles, you...

I attended Ingrid’s 4th & 5th grade Valentine's Dance last night at Larry G. Smith Elementary. She had been talking about this for weeks and wanted to know if she could go. Of course she could, I said. And she was so excited. But then I asked if parents were going and if I could go, too. She said she wasn’t sure about that and would have to get back to me. I asked if she would be embarrassed if I went with her and she sort of shyly grinned and I so I promised I wouldn’t get out on the dance floor in front of all of her friends and do the Glide, or the Fist Pump, or the Shuffle, or that thing kids today call cwalking. She giggled and said, “Oh Poppy.” Anyway, I bought our tickets and decided to go as a volunteer. I kept telling her she needed to pick out an outfit for the dance but she insisted that she was just going to wear her skinny jeans and “a cute top.” Hmmm, I thought. Okay. So we went to the mall and picked out a cute top which she didn’t end up wearing a...