Telling: The girl is in love.
Showing:
She’s so happy, this girl,
she’s sending out sparks like a brush fire,
so lit with life
her eyes could beam airplanes through fog,
so warm with his loving
we could blacken our toast|
on her forehead.
The phone rings
and she whispers to it
“I love you.”
The cord uncoils
and leaps to tell him
she said it,
the receiver melts in her hand
as if done by Dali,
the whole room crackles
and we at the breakfast table
smile
but at safe distance
having learned by living
that love so without insulation
can immolate more than the toast.
- LoVerne Brown
