My mother’s smile holds back tears, every time.

She cries so easily, she will tell you
She cries at commercials and
cartoons, children’s movies, adults’ movies,
her son screaming,
her daughter turning shouting kicking

her smile always glistens ever so slightly;
you can see it,
if you catch it in just the right light,
My mother has many kinds of smiles.

Sometimes all of her teeth show,
like pearls in head-thrown-back laughter
she laughs easily, she will tell you;
She laughs at jokes with lukewarm punchlines,
at small comments and moments, at a perfect timing of words,
at a situation all chaos plucked out of hands,
left with nothing but empty hands burning heart and
a diaphragm,

it is better to laugh, she will tell you;
when life hands you laughter, use up all its mileage.
let it consume your belly and spread your lips wide and
if you look dumb to other people well then,
they in their lifetimes have not laughed
enough.

Sometimes all of her teeth show,
but mostly the just the top row,
but all of them so wide in that smile;
like when she wakes you up on the morning of
and sings too early on your birthday,
or yells Merry Christmas Eve Eve!
or is tired enough to
make a small joke clad in her pajama pants,
childlike and wise with years,
granting you a gaze of those teeth
from which her joy echoes.

Every so often,

just the tips

of her teeth show --
maybe this is a form of her smile,
or a frown

so severe it

can no longer be called a frown,
so nomenclature must once again dub it
a smile, such a

sharp one hundred eighty degree shift that
copy paste rotate, what a beautiful
smile,
her forehead clenches sometimes and
I am afraid that she will slap me, sometimes
she slaps me I
probably deserved it, I

Sometimes her lips are closed

but spread across her face wide,
and her eyes are lifted up a bit, in the corners.
It is like a grimace, but one degree too happy,

one inch shy from
holding sorrow or resentment;
It is more like,

I wish I could show you my full smile, or
it hurts, why won’t you let me show you a full smile, or
this would have been a full smile, or
why do you keep hurting me?
it usually comes with a shrug, a look,
glisten passive eyes that are
not looking away, but
not quite looking,

either.

Or sometimes my mother’s smile is quiet,
lips closed corners tugging slightly
like she is not trying

to communicate or convey a message,
but holding it in her heart to keep for herself.

you can catch it if you
glimpse back at the right moment;
while walking away to your day at school, while
performing onstage or in a dining room, right
after you say goodnight,
while she doesn’t think you can see it
or doesn’t know that you can see it
or doesn’t really care if you can see, her smile just
sits there,
beaming,
thinking of childbirth and what a great God and what oh
what is this life, this
beautiful thing? she
is so filled up with love.

When I was an infant,

it took my mother forty-five minutes
to fit me into a onesie
before she left the hospital.

she took her time, careful --

she was afraid

that somehow, like a tiny doll

she would break me;

she
was smiling
the whole time.