Ending

Some smiles are too much to bear in color

Her upturned lips over a griddle of roasting tomatoes
and peppers and the sound of running water
and slurring shouting Christmas
drunks and the smell, the texture of
dust and smoke and sticky children

But her eyes
her eyes are euphemisms
"a coconut dropped on my head"
swelling where a human hand struck
"he's working far away"
a no-show on a holiday with plump spherical supermarket grapes
for another woman
"everything's in God's hands"
the spirits of the young dead
hover unintentionally
cruelly

Only those who have wept bitterly over injustice
recognize the dull before the sparkle

I made her smile black and white to help everyone see

"She looks so happy!" you told me,
and I fell out of love with you