Seeing Everything She Said Poem by Dónall Dempsey

He remembers
he stopped

listening to her

just gazed at her
intently

wondering how she’d come to be
beside him.

He saw her lips
drawn back in scarlet laughter.

the narrow neatness of her teeth
(each tooth perfect)
a tiny bubble of saliva...at the corner of her mouth.

Everything was just
the same but
different

it seemed the sound
of the world

had been turned down
or rather sound had not been invented

and he gazed
at every pore

every little freckle

getting lost
in the glisten of her eyes

the flowing river of her

hair

and then the sound
appeared again

as if he had been
Rip Van Winkle

returning to find her
accusing him

“...of not even listening! ”

And he swore
that he had

and he had

been listening
but with his eyes

and he had seen
everything she said.