Serrated Smiles

They arrive disguised as patches of blue sky between gathering storm clouds,

 hung from the faces of so-called friends,

 politicians polishing promises like brass buttons,

 salesmen with handshakes slick as eels,

clerks, cousins, uncles, neighbors, their smiles folded neatly over hidden edges.

 The serrations often go unnoticed,

thin as saw-teeth beneath velvet,

gleaming like knives wrapped in birthday ribbon.

Trust steps forward barefoot through clover,

and suddenly finds itself in a snare of wire,

ambushed, cornered, forced into compliance

by a grin bright as sunlight on broken glass.

Some smiles bloom like pitcher plants,

their sweetness fragrant as summer orchards,

while beneath, digestive shadows wait.

A family smile may brush the cheek like a feather dipped in honey,

 yet leave splinters buried under the skin.

A stranger's smile can be a painted doorway on a wall of brick,

a beautiful illusion of passage.

Words emerge from those mouths like red silk scarves

concealing fishhooks, and faith is reeled inward,

its soft belly dragged across reefs of invisible teeth.

Yet…

Even sharks deserve a gentler verdict.

They do not glide through vast green corridors of drifting light and shadow dreaming of ways to impose their serrated mouths upon us.

Their test-bites are often questions,

brief confusions sparked by our frantic splashing,

not malice, nor hunger,

nor schemes of betrayal.

And there is a hard lesson in that: the shark's jagged mouth

is honest in its purpose,

while the serrated smile walks upright among us,

wearing cologne,

campaign pins,

 family names.

More often than not, it leaves deeper wounds than any finned shadow below,

and is far more dangerous than swimming with the sharks.