Don't Count the Kisses, He Said
  By Ksenia Rychtycka

Don’t count the kisses, he said,
as if it mattered if we kissed two times or twenty.
We stood together as any happy couple,
legs interlocked in the sand like shards of pottery
dug up at Akrotiri.

We smiled for the camera, for
your friends and even the little man
who unlocked the monastery at Dafni.

Who would have guessed we spent all
night on our feet, cutting across dance floors,
ducking the yellow-green blasts of light.

Even birds couldn’t scatter so quickly.

Who wouldn’t have laughed
that we dreamed of a house and whispered
of windows wide as the stars,
sunflowers flanking the driveway.

Even then we knew weeks counted for years.

Maybe that’s why we lingered until day
and night and night and day
rolled over our shoulders -- perhaps
you’ve heard of the stampede of fire?
No wings of Pegasus
could have borne its power.

Let me say I counted every kiss like a moment
you can’t quite recall.