The Kiss

I touch your curls and the nubs

of antlers. our village is far,

still audible: the melancholy

of distant laughter. in the village,

a father, like a king, sits in the chair

of his child’s sorrow. a father is kissed

only when we find a stag by the road,

his head twisted oddly, and we kneel

to kiss his antlered form, the father

darker than doors and ponds,

knowing he cannot kiss us in return.