Her Laughter

— — for A. B.

When she laughs and I hear her,
walking in front of her or behind,
no matter our distance, I am near her;
every thought replaced in my mind.
The water of it, jumping, pouring,
amid her lips, flowing, soaring
from her neck, her head thrown back,
igniting all the air she breathes,
in thrilling fingerprints she leaves
on me with what her laughter says.

And what her laughter says is that,
“I’m nowhere else but with you now.”
Then, this having been announced,
the space around her levitates;
it becomes a little weightless,
those who surround her, elevating,
endowing on the air the traces
of lightning that the water chases,
the flash of flame that dances
in splashes on the water’s faces
down the dips and rippling places,
lapping light-dappled encaptured traces
in sparks that charge her air with luster;
her voice is joy and life recovered.

Her voice is notes of sunlit motes
like fireflies that closely float
nearby, in late summer, and never rest
the parts of them that softly glow.
When she talks, it’s like her laughter
is gathered up in bales together,
in melodies, and gently tethered,
bound in bands of softened leather
as brocaded locks of golden heather.

Her words redound the gales of air
then from her laughter’s music,
all at once—lyrics are there.
So, her laughter has its overture,
its denouement, and a quiet end,
when her slowly fading singing,
maintains yet still some faint ringing,
even as outside a silence tries,
to eclipse her choir inside from sight,
its memory made friable by daylight.
Her laughter is more gorgeous still
than any words I could ever write.