Smiles....! Poem by Vidya Pandarinath

Index of the facial nod,
Just a gesture or a prod ?
Like ripples gliding
On the surface form -
Gentle thoughts hiding
In the mind's abstract nook
It appears and vanishes ;
Toothy and toothless
Chubby, the wide-eyed ones,
The conceited or the deceitful
Or the smirk of disgust -
The smile rumples the face.
Petty, enigmatic bloom
Of an infant misleads
And tends to please
An affiliate onlooker.
The comely content and relief
On a child's fused face,
The sly conceding gesture
In a youth's affected leer,
The measured pragmatic grin
Of the business lips prim!
And the blankness in the jeer
Of a cold, stiff corpse!