for L.A.

That kiss I failed to give you.
How can you forgive me?
The kiss I would have spent on you is still
there, within me. It will probably die there.
But it will be the last of me to die.

__________

“After Kurt’s passing, I was asked by editors of literary reviews to send poems by him, so that they could publish some of his new work in memoriam. At the same time, Tiger Bark Press asked me for all of Kurt’s poems to start working on a collection entitled: I’ve Come This Far to Say Hello: New and Selected Poems by Kurt Brown. So I very reluctantly went into Kurt’s computer — something I never thought I’d have to do — in search of all those poems. In a file entitled “Almost Poems,” I found about fifty poems in different stages of completion, filed in alphabetical order by title. I read, and read those poems for a long, sad afternoon. Then, under the letter “T”, I found “The Kiss” — written a month and a half before he passed away.” ~ Laure-Anne Bosselaar

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