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Actors faced with – BEAT – THEY KISS
lest kissing lead to awkwardness,
cold sores, flu, or simply bed
will opt to kiss themselves instead;

and thus the radio-drama snog
is how you tell just how a man
precisely feels about his hand.
For men, alas, will often hog

this bit with darling, would you mind?
Or come ‘ere you … or I beseech –
and in the well-timed plonker find
a way to silence her, mid-speech.

They broach the pop-shield with the back
of their left paw, and plant a smack
with lots of extra wet and suction
to be dialled down in post-production.

Yet harken to the glowing tank!
What is that sound? The crunch of locks?
A horse with an apple? That final yank
before the toilet sink unblocks?

Oh dear. Real kisses, we efface.
We lock our mouths down tight, like rubber
seals on docking ports in space
where nobody can hear you slobber.

Now pucker up. Can you resist
a cheeky dorsal level-test?
Ha ha loser
but wasn’t that a touch heartbreaking

in its sad squeaky isolation?
Imagine the compounded shame
of doing something quite so lame
before a whole attentive nation.

Now play that little squelch again
on the old-style tape-delay your brain
keeps around for such short measures
as it would replay at its leisure;

and as the quality degrades
and your auto-embrasse gently fades
into the Atlantic churn
to which all smackers must return –

ask yourself: what clever foley
could honour, say, that secret santa
who blew your mind below the holly?
A ring pulled on a can of Fanta?

Would you brick a ripened peach
for that white hour in late December
you made out on the stony beach?
The sound’s the last thing you remember.

So thesps: when scripts call for a kiss
just say your line, and pause, like this:

and trust the thrill of the dead air;
and us to know what goes in there.

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