Laughter and Love

Loving Laughter
-- Big Frank Dickinson

True understanding leads to laughter
Someone said, with thoughts of a mutually gotten joke.
She laughs at my jokes and I feel understood,
And I laugh at hers. But when she laughs at me
I sometimes have to step outside of myself
In order to see myself as she does when she laughs.
Sometimes it’s only the expression on my face;
Contrite perhaps when mockingly criticized,
Pressed together lips smacking with concentration,
Or (strange habit) tongue pushing out on my cheek
As I strain at some trivial task – she laughs,
And I, unaware of my presentation to her, ask:
“What’s so funny?” Then she tells me, and
I then not only see myself (through her eyes),
But I see her reaction to how I express myself writ small;
The tiny exclamation points (tongue pressing into my cheek),
The question marks of raised eyebrows silently befuddled,
Or the ellipsis of the markedly blank look waiting for understanding.
This laugh is the sign of her close attention to my face,
And her code breaking efforts that erupt in laughter as she understands.
The funny exchange; the love of close attention;
The attention of closeness writ bold with laughter, the reasons
As inexplicable as the reasons for loving one another.