Your Disappearing Smile Poem by Dónall Dempsey

You pick up toys
here & there

& a piece of poo
(mummified now)

from the baby’s
nappy

when she crawled
crap ‘n’ all behind the couch.

This, obviously
a bit we missed.

I watching you
bend & bend again

picking up all the little things
of being human

aTigger…a tiger
a Pooh…a poo.

Your smiling face
covered & uncovered

by a falling curtain
of hair.

Your hair falling
in a black wave of applause.

Your appearing
& disappearing

smile

the most beautiful thing of all
in all my world.

It sneaks
almost unnoticed

into my mind

curls up
& goes asleep

where I, all these
years later

discover
it

remember
it

hold it
in my hand

& weep.