Psychologists say it’s written there
in the sophisticated combinations
of musculature and nervous twitches
of tightened lips and raised inner eyebrows
of bulges, bags, pouches and lines.

We think we are such masters, that
we control our destiny, make others
believe what we would have them to believe.

It’s illusion. We fool nobody but ourselves.
When we love from our depths, we do so
body, soul, heart and mind – face it.

I knew this before I read it and wonder
at how you think, still, cold words spoken
in fear or confusion would last in the wake
of the warm, true waters we swam in so long
or the honest face you never could shake.

Don’t blink. Don’t think I believe
the bevy of words, the flurry of silence,
the protests and the feigned dismay.

And when you’re ready to remember what
you so want to forget, find me and read
the love I feel written all over my face.

(informed by the book, blink, by Malcolm Gladwell)