Explore "Smiles" by Maxwell Bodenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ Smiles are the words beyond the words / That thoughts abandon helplessly. / Upon this nervous shop-girl's face, / Where clusters of tiny limpness meet, / A frightened spark leaps high and drops / Into the hot pause of a banished love. / A lustrelessly plump / Girl beside her does not know / That her face for moments glows / Into a helpless solitude. / Upon an old man's face / Are gleams of meek embarrassment -- / The faded presence of some old debt? / This woman's face is scorched / By a torch that falls from weary hands / And makes her laugh an unheard lie. / The face of this tamed sprite / Shimmers with an understanding / Of the opaque loss she cannot bear, / And I see that smiles are sometimes / Words beyond the words / That thoughts abandon hopefully.