sometimes when we smile

at some shared joke, it’s as if

you’re smiling in me

*

and we’re one wit (as

it were) in one split

                                                          second

when you smile in me

*

a smile spilt over

from that mere moment of now’s

spillage of pixels

*

past laughter uplifts

us – we’re happiest when shared

smiles float up again

*

**

*

freddie omm

winter 2020

 

Note: The idea for this haiku chain was sparked by Proust, where he describes Swann’s memory of Odette’s laughter just as he is sinking into disfavour with the Verdurin set: …”il voyait Odette en rire, en rire avec lui, presque en lui.” – Un Amour de Swann, p. 282. The memory of shared laughter lifts us, as it does Swann, bonding us in a timeless bubble with those whose passing laughter we share, becoming especially poignant and powerful when that bond feels as though it might break through separation or drifting apart.