The Sunday Poem: The Smile
She wore it like a sundress: loose
And casual, unashamed of all
There was beneath. It fit, like blue
Fits water — clinging close, a fall
Of folds and shining white. It dressed
Her, danced her, light and lonely, held
Her in herself, contained her, less
Than kisses, more than faces will.
She was no person. Her smile enclosed
Her, was her; smiles do that, steal
Your body, take your eyes. She knows
It happened; yes, it came off, sheer
And casual like a sundress, quick
And lonely for an instant, not
A person, making love to lack.
She ran away; she knew, she thought,
How smiles are, how waterfalls
Splinter on rocks, how blue can fill
The eyes — how right she was — that all
Smiles kiss more than true faces will.
It was some girl, in a stairwell, in grad school, I think. We passed briefly, I nodded, she smiled this blinding smile. She really did look scared after her smile, like she shouldn’t have smiled quite so openly, and she quickly ducked her head and walked away very quickly. Maybe she thought I was someone else. 🙂
And even in the instant, I realized I couldn’t picture her face at all, what she looked like, any aspect of her — just the smile, like it was an entity that has possessed her body for an instant. And even though the smile struck me as utterly genuine — more genuine than most smiles, any way — it also therefore was lying, because most smiles aren’t genuine, and because to smile like that was not an indication of the way the world usually really is.
So I ended up with this moment of “truth” that felt like it didn’t belong, because the world usually sucks. What do you do with something like that? Write a poem, I guess.
Technical note: yeah, this is actually a formal poem — rhymes and meter and everything.
6 Responses to “The Sunday Poem: The Smile”
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I’m torn on this one. I like the words, imagery, and flow of it all – but reading it as a poem left some transitions (between lines) feeling awkward. When I read it as descriptive narrative, the formality suddenly becomes life hidden inside the paragraph and don’t distract as much. Which gets interesting parts of my brain working – hiding poetry inside of narrative, with small tweaks to make it work could be an interesting technique for writing.
Don’t take that as a negative statement friend. I like it, the entire image, it fits what your explanation states even without that explanation.
I was taught, though I haven’t quite managed to make it a habit, that you should read a poem straight, as if the line breaks weren’t there, and care for the periods and comma and punctuation marks as if it were prose.
That’s right, in the case of formal poetry at least. (in free vese, often the line breaks are used as punctuation).
So in this case, this poem ought to be read this way, probably (I inserted some paragraph breaks where it felt like they fit):
Lovely. The use of slant rhyme instead of straight here creates the same feeling of skew that the experience seemed to provide for you — what actually was vs. what should be. Nice form following sense. 🙂
Ahhh, see now that really helps. I had very little exposure to the formalities and mechanics of poetry. In fact I can really only remember one time we actively studied poetry, in the 10th grade. When I was in the 4th grade we learned Haiku.
Odd now that I think of it all.