THE KISS: INTIMACIES FROM WRITERS (edited by Brian Turner), fifty-plus essays by different writers, will be released this week, in conjunction with Valentine's Day. But readers should be warned that this is NOT just a book-length, artsy kind of valentine. Nope. Because there are ALL kinds of kisses to be found in this book, and it's a pretty damn profound collection, to be honest. And whoever reads it will find something that will click, that will take you back, will make you remember. I found plenty.

In "Half Fable," Terrance Hays tells of a kiss he got from his father, explaining beforehand, "I was taught as all boys are taught: boys should not be kissed; men do not kiss." Hayes was going through a divorce, something his parents had barely avoided once.

"... I had never seen him sob the way he did that morning when I told him my marriage was ending. I can't describe it, the gentleness. It shocked us: my brother, mother and me. No one said anything. Then he rose embraced me for what felt like two or three minutes. My face was against his shoulder. Before letting go, he kissed me, quickly, softly."

A father's kiss was, in my family too, a very rare thing.

Here's another, about a child's kiss. Ira Sukrungruang, in "Kiss, Kiss," describes his six-month-old son's kiss -

"My son does not give kisses. He devours. He will take your face in both hands and open his mouth wide and seek to encapsulate the whole of you. He will take your nose, your forehead, your chin. His kisses are a possession."

As a father, my favorite memories are of the wet, sloppy, open-mouthed kisses I got from my first son, when he was still so much a baby. They were so messy, so wet, and I loved them so much.

Another father's kiss - in Dinty W. Moore's "Leaning In," in which he tells of an often absent, alcoholic dad, and his parents' eventual divorce when he was ten years old. But he did go visit his father -

"In my memory, my father never once tucked me in, never once kissed me good night during my childhood. In this new phase, it took a while until we even hugged ... And then one day - I was sixteen, maybe - as we said goodbye near his front doorway, I stretched up on my toes and kissed him, on his unshaven face, on the stubble of his cheek. I can feel it still, the sharpness of the whiskers, the surprisingly soft skin undrneath. I can feel, also, him not pulling back, but leaning in. He didn't live many years longer. I'm sure I kissed him a few more times. But that first kiss. I still miss him, my dad. So damn much."

Now THAT made me cry. Because I get it. Miss my own dad so damn much too.

Something a little lighter maybe, but just as profound, can be found in Benjamin Busch's "Kissing Melissa," a memory of a fifth grade crush and a kiss that never happened, but was imagined "thousands of times."

"I've never forgotten her. It was a beautiful romance and lit my way to immensities. Melissa comes back to me sometimes, a flicker, thirty years later, but she's still a girl ... I finally know what I'd say if I were still a boy. It took me never kissing her to find the words."

A bit closer to that elusive valentine feeling, perhaps - and I remember that first crush too, Ben.

I think the piece that moved me most was Brian Castner's "A Letter to My Wife on Her 40th Birthday." The first lines immediately deepen this from a simple love letter to an understanding, a deep sense of sadness and wonder -

"My Love - Today you turned forty years old. Today my friend's wife died. My friend's name is also Brian. He and I were soldiers, we fought in the war and that meant we were supposed to die first. But he didn't die first, and now I see I might not either, so I cling to you like you never had a shadow until today ..."

Castner and his wife, who married very young, both know, perhaps better than most, how very lucky they are. This letter comes as close to a perfect valentine as the whole collection has to offer. But I've already told you that THE KISS is not really a valentine. It is more a meditation by many, on life and death, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, parents and children, grief and longing - and, of course, love. There's a lot to think about here. I will recommend it highly, even as a Valentine's Day present.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )