Laughing Around Poem by Nicholas Radulescu

My laughter pokes
The surface of emptiness-oceans
With so much water filled
and beneath it nothing.

There would be fishes
Reefs the white sands
And yellow grains of
Algarve to catch the eye.
So said National Geographic.

But all I catch is ocean water
salt and briny creatures that
Never sleep and float
Like spaceships in
The dead of Space.

These days laughing has
Been more about unhappiness.
Laughing around and dying
Empty in endless water.

Til Pablo and Enrique
The babies show up.
"Pablito! Pablito! Enrique! "
Scream the moms and the
Babies are balls.

They giggle with their
Throats and gargle the
Apple sauce that pours
From their smiling mouths.
This laughing is clear and
Cool and rushing; a stream.