When You Laugh
Your laugh, you see, is lyrical to me,
I find it a pleasant sound.
Its gleeful tone when you giggle
lifts me when I’m down.
When you laugh with me,
with a smile on your face,
it’s happiness on display,
beauty and grace.
When I hear you laugh
the sound is sincere,
as when you were a little girl,
to me it’s clear.
When I make you laugh
it’s precious to see,
this feeling of joy
on display for me.
Laughter in our life
is not rare or fleeting,
it’s often and enjoyed,
welcome and needed.
The collection turns from the comprehensive to the particular with this poem — taking the sense of sound established in I Sense You and devoting an entire poem to a single specific expression of it. Priya’s laugh. Scott hears in it something irreplaceable — a gleeful tone that lifts him when he is down, a sincerity that reveals the child she once was, a joy he takes personal satisfaction in drawing out. It is the collection’s most purely joyful poem and a welcome reminder that love at its best is also genuinely fun.
Priya has a laugh that is entirely her own. I noticed it early and I have never stopped noticing it. The line that surprised me most in this poem was “as when you were a little girl” — I did not plan it but when it arrived I knew it was true. There is something in her laugh that is completely unguarded and unchanged by everything she has lived through. Hearing it is a privilege. Making it happen is one of my favorite things.