Rotated waxing crescent moon
of the face, it, like the moon, is made from cheese.
In a silent movie, it's the same as a laugh. Muted joy.
Close lipped it sits as a canoe on the still ocean of the face,
bottom lip afloat, upper lip the cargo. Open lipped,
it's a bow without an arrow, lying on an enamel table.
It's a hammock holding teeth.

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The idea of this poem came after reading Chad Davidson's poem, "The Yawn," in which he describes a yawn as a "tooth-jeweled grenade." I decided to take the image of a smile and see how the shape and the look of it is replicated in other things. I think poets are always looking for these connections, and it was fun to focus in on a single image and see how many other images it evoked.