And in Pursuit, Happiness

When my mother laughs,

A sunburst of striations explode

From her left eye,

The same asymmetrical

Grimace which spawns

On my own temple

The intermittent,

Ugly amusement of

Simultaneous swollen tears and

The bearing of teeth

Clutching my stomach,

Doubled over,

One might have assumed

I’d been struck,

That I’d rise with a

Bloody eye

Clapping her hands is

Another bout,

Sending gyrating glee

Into the air,

With welling faces

If in a silent film,

We’d seem a pair

Agitated,

In need

Of a mediator

If we’d carried on

Without context,

Our writhing bodies’d

Been taken to the street