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title
"... brevity is the soul of wit ..."
- William Shakespeare

Johanna Nauraine


 

Happiness

I have always thought happiness a silly word,
jaunty as a man's hat worn at an angle.

How could I take such a word seriously,
when it's associated with a rogue impulse like laughter—
or know it deeply
when its true character is irrepressible as flight?

Were it to land on me, I feared it would leave just as quickly.
In its place would be a sting, a welt, or something greater —
a canyon, deep and shadowed, that swallowed the sun.

Instead, it arrived surreptitiously,
sliding over me like a second skin.
I hardly recognized myself,
that woman with a smile in her step.