THE SUNSHINE OF HER SMILE

I looked like myself,
but I wasn’t me anymore.

Beneath a melting surface
with no center
to sustain me,
something
both unknowable and familiar
seemed destined to disappear
between everything and nothingness.

In languid limbo
surrounded by hollow shade,
nothing but the inner light
from the love
of my life
could block out
the motionless shadows
of clenched sadness
and half-forgotten joys.

The sunshine of her smile,
etched deep inside
her soul and mine,
keeps me from falling
and is my sole connection
to the reconstruction of myself,
particle by particle,
cell by cell.

I have learned to move
according to the rhythm
of her life
and mine to come
with a singular heart
and the certainty
of uncertainty.

Destined by love
that endures beyond
our vanishing,
we return
to the very essence
of poetry,
side by side,
page by unwritten page.

© JOHN PISCATELLA