Each day is a kiss

Each day is a kiss
with no response,
But I know, it's a kiss.
Just as you’ve done for forty 1 years
the kisses you’ve sown
Into the walls, the windowsills,
The way our children crackled laughter
When they were still children,
The way they still do.

Each day I have a task.
I count how many kisses given
And how many received.
I say, “Sweetheart, how many kisses will you give me today?”
And in your silence, I write down: a thousand.

Each day we measure time not by hours
Or even days,
but by kisses,
like puddles of rain—
we wait to become air.