As Always Smiling

Steven Kellert

Laughter tripping down to me

Your liquid humor flying

A word, a phrase, a sentence

From your lips, as always smiling

Shoulders brush, cold fingers touch

Warmth sought in carpal twining

The winter’s brush ignored as heat

Leaps your lips, as always smiling

Walk with me a ways tonight

Night skies, cloud-whispered sighing

Over streets, past marble steps

Hear your lips, as always smiling

Blue ice and flint that flash to me

You call on sleep, my scrying

And ward the terrors kept at bay

By your lips, as always smiling

Your gentle hand upon my face

We sway, caressed in dancing

And laugh as one, I leap within,

Kiss your lips, as always smiling