Kisses are a better fate

There used to be one type. The plunged lips of cows chewing cud.
Tense, fleshy wet foils entwined. Touched. Eyes glaring back like
a cadaver. Then, it was conquest: if you'd kissed her, you'd had her.
Sweet six and, with Kiss (the band), I skipped the music but wore

the T-shirt. Around this time I saw the Pope kiss dirt. Gut feeling:
less history, more geophagy. Where's the humanity? More love in a
kiss from Glasgow. Or Kirkby. Can anyone beat this? The worst kiss?
The daddy was Judas. But that was a stitch up. Note how his mentions

accent “betrayer” before the betrayal. Scribes protest way too much.
A simple ID? More likely, thought he: To here, so it went. All that
hard work. Lost, like a temper. Like heads in a temple. We're spent.
Carved in stone, a better fate. My move: a salute. A goodbye to a mate.

Now I only kiss my daughter (5) at the school gate. See her wipe it off,
a demonstrative bleurgh. Thinks she won't need it. She's gotten tough.
But on her sleeve, it spots her all day: my DNA. Those senseless letters
rearrange as she reads. Turn binary – when she counts – ones, zeros;

yeses and nos to each social choice. “Wish I kissed her mum more,”
says a voice.