You Like My Smile

You like my smile, I can tell
by the gliding bird your body becomes when you see it.
It's for real, but laying low behind it
is the goodbye hiding under my tongue for later.

I am a woman always quarreling with clocks--
they show too early or too late to suit me.
Mornings, I ache for the drowse and lamplight of evening.
Evenings, I wish the sun were just rising, nothing decided, everything unspoken.

Here is my smile, here is my heart.
Here is the sun, the moon, the mail, the years.
It's for real, but laying low behind it
is the goodbye I hide that will break our hearts, 
there from the beginning, the taint behind the smile you love. 
________

for this.