her smile is the thing

my mama, she holds the puppy

in one of her black and white histories

and her smile is the thing

a bare-footed gypsy in the 

early years of her epoch,

building up those resistances

i think i might believe that 

that smile is for me-in-waiting, 

because i called for her even then

her youngest child, who

would be heir to her runty,

her lush lips and lank

and i would be picked on for it

during the early school years,

but she loved the hell out of me

the best way she knew how,

with her little body and 

deep well of blood-fever passions

there is everything in that 

picture that needs to be to 

tell her future

the uncomely summer dress,

whose hem is soiled by the

daily drag on the ground,

gives voice to a life in the 

shade of a forced frugality

on a teacher's salary

the toes in the dirt sing to

a future of days treading an

eternal path of stones and ruts

the arms, in a desperate clutch,

cry to a soul made out of the

effusion of a heart's radical charity

but her smile is the thing,

the beacon for so many of

life's migratory love-makers

who will find themselves

on a reckless sea, thrown and

imperiled, raging and raw

her smile will cast out and

in that sweep, capture them and

hold them fast for a better port

i know this as much

as i know those small hands

and tranquil, sufficient lips

my mama, who played

in the dirt with her bare

feet and hands and who

grew up wanting me in

her womb and loving me

in her wondrous way

felt no poverty but that

which was poorly placed

at her feet by others

i have her smile

i have her smile