| In the American Midwest: a period of 1-2 days, typically in the third week of February, when temperatures rise and the weather turns briefly spring-like. Compare with Indian Summer.
"The Kiss" is only a brief respite--usually there is another signifcant snowfall by the end of the month/early March. Still, for at least an afternoon the winter disappears and heavy coats can be left at home.
From life-experience:
"Today I lie wondering, will there be a kiss this February--one day, or two when all this snow is gone and the sun is wan, low. That one day, or two of unseasonal warmth that fools the overzealous migrants into song on the dry twigs of branches. Almost every year it happens, the spring's long leg slipping behind the doorframe; too coy to reveal her green tresses, simply one slim ankle appearing and disappearing. But for that day, we go out walking unweighted, our bulk and fur fully shed.
"Eight years ago she kissed us, and you stuffed an old blanket into your dingy denim pack. I picked you up in a car that is gone to scrap now, and we may have sung songs that are only solos today. The woodlands we sought, hemmed by the state, were riddled with trails, but empty, others taking their kisses in stride elsewhere.
"The light was washed-out, an afternoon where the present was faded like memory, like an ancient story or like the fantasies we used to weave, the cat on my shoulder, the crow in your hair. How much was love and how much foolishness then? I don't remember. All was design.
"We went off the path into the last autumn's leaves, down into the gulley, up along a ridge, keeping our backs to the way home. Without underbrush the hiding was harder, we wandered far (or far it felt, we may have been perilously close) until we found a room of grapevines...
"An old bottle of whiskey, half-buried, evidenced that this was a place of recluse, and with unsteady arms I helped you spread the blanket over leaves. The kisses of February are sweet but lies, that flesh of young spring is chill to the touch. Fear, that voyeur without bounds, kept our leggings at our knees, kept your shirt bunched high, numbed my fingers in your hand, made our loving cold.
"You and I painted in those days, and on the slow hike after, we painted over February's kiss: a blizzard beneath those grapevine rafters."
| 
