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Posts Tagged ‘laughter’

 Late Night Flight

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 20, 2026| 8 Comments »


 
 
Expecting my daughter to come in
late, I slept lightly, attentive
to the slightest sound.
Imagine my surprise when my son,
dead four years, came into my room
and spoke soft in my ear
to let me know he was home.
I hugged him so long. Wondered
aloud why I hadn’t been expecting him.
Let him know his sister had
taken over their old room. Together,
we sorted through his old art projects,
old shirts, old shoes. When his sister
came home we hugged her, too,
and played chase, leaping over the bed,
the chairs, laughing, squealing, alive.
Soon, I was floating—zagging
through the air with wild delight—
not because I was trying to fly, more
like I was a leaf lifted by wind, soaring
with no effort of my own. I chased them
this way, through the dream to the day,
and our laughter was then and now
and somehow inside me forever.

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But Not a Moment Sooner

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on December 18, 2025| 4 Comments »


 
 
Eventually we learn to laugh when we drop
the glass and it shatters all over the floor,
finding laughter more fun than a shackle of curses.
We can wiggle our butt more when someone
says it looks big instead of trying to tuck it
tighter beneath our hips. Eventually we learn
there is no way to not be exactly ourselves.
What freedom then. We can listen to the sound
of our own voice without cringing. Can dance
in front of anyone. Can wake up grateful for our aging face
in the mirror. Can wear questions like exotic perfume
and see how they grow us. Eventually,
we can look at each other and say,
I’m so glad you are exactly who you are.

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After Four Hours of Driving, We Arrive at What Google Maps Said Would Be a Park

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 2, 2025| 3 Comments »


 
 
There is no park.
Still, we park at the edge
of the road and look out
over the Hudson
beyond the thick trees,
inhale the yellowing
scent of autumn,
reach our arms up to the sky,
play chase around the car,
and laugh the whole time,
at first in disbelief,
and at last in surrender.
One more chance to meet
the world that is here
instead of the world
we expect. One more chance
find ourselves grateful
to be exactly where we are.

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Ongoing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 20, 2025| 1 Comment »


 
 
I don’t know how, after your son has died,
you go on, she said, and I don’t know either,
but this morning, I walked through the field
 
where he used to drive the Gator, pulling his
friends behind him in an old red canoe, all
of them howling their laughter, shrieking their joy,
 
and I stood in that empty field and wept, my heart
in halves, and a scrap of old joy slipped through
the crack, and I laughed, tears streaming, I laughed.

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Sitting in a Circle of Friends

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 20, 2025| 2 Comments »


                 
 
We are laughing, and the sound
is sweet as honeysuckle—
the way it clings to the air—
and even as I laugh,
I’m aware of the many wounds
each of these women
have endured, imagining
how often we have wept,
sometimes with each other,
sometimes alone. Knowing
the ache somehow makes
the laughter all the more sweet—
and the joy of it stitches into me
like a golden thread.
I welcome the pierce
as I feel it connect us,
knowing if I tug on this strand
twenty years from now,
it will bring me back to this night
with its warm summer air
and low summer light,
this radiant night sparkling
with a laughter we nourished
for years by loving each other
through all those tears.

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When I’m Feeling Serious

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 18, 2025| 4 Comments »

Curled up beside me,
my girl studies the laugh
of a man she admires
and the more he guffaws
the more she guffaws,
which of course,
makes me laugh, too,
and soon the evening
is a riotous bouquet
of giggles. I gather
the sound in me like a field
of wildflowers, a pleasure
that reseeds itself,
lovely as lupine, common
as blue flax that thrives
along even the busiest road.

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The Gathering

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 27, 2025| 3 Comments »


                  for Ali and Sherry
 
 
Laughter, it softens us,
just hours ago I was
broken glass, but now
after giggling through
dinner and flopping
on the unmade bed
it’s as if I’ve been tumbled
in a warm and shallow sea,
waves of laughter doing
what waves do—
rubbing my sharp edges
against the grit of life
until I feel like a treasure,
like something that belongs
here in your hands.

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One Hearing My Daughter Laugh

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 24, 2024| 4 Comments »


just when I think
I’m made of sludge
you candle me

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Falling Asleep to the Sound of My Daughter Giggling

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on July 31, 2024| 6 Comments »


 
 
Whatever in me feels sodden,
soiled, weighty, it slips from
my body, as if her laughter
is rain until all that is left in me
is sky.

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Christie Sends Me a Photo

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 29, 2024| 7 Comments »


 
 
Her head is pasted onto my body
wearing a very plain black dress.
My head’s pasted onto her body
wearing a flamboyant jumpsuit
with pixilated technicolor chaos,
a jumpsuit she’s tried to get me
to wear for months.
She knows wearing patterns
makes me queasy. And what
is it in us that loves to make
our beloveds squirm?
I’m an easy target.
She knows I will squeal and
splutter and rail, so when I call
in a righteous outrage
over how she’s dressed my likeness
in a blenderized rainbow,
she laughs and I laugh
and something is so right
with the world then—
this goofy, giddy moment
when the stakes are low
and I am uncomfortable and prickly
and feel so deeply seen,
so able to laugh at the lines I draw.
I fall inside the laughter,
feel it wrap around me
bright as that flashy jumpsuit.
And I, who crave what is solid,
I dissolve into that brightness.
 

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