The First Truth
The first thing I notice
is never the voice,
not the clothes,
or the introduction.
It is the eyes.
Their color is only the beginning—
blue, brown, green, gray—
less important than what is inside.
Do they carry warmth,
or the chill of a door left closed?
Are they awake to the world,
or dulled by distance?
Do they settle on my eyes,
or drift beyond me
as though I were already disappearing?
Then I look at the mouth.
A smile can bloom easily enough,
but does it reach upward?
Do the eyes match the mouth's message
or do they remain silent,
strangers to the lips that smile below?
When eyes and mouth part company,
I begin to wonder
which one is speaking.
That silence between them
is louder than words.
Something has remained unsaid.
A smile belongs to intention
But the eyes belong to truth.
Eyes have never learned to lie.
The first thing I notice is the eyes.
This was written for my prompt at What's Going On? -- Eyes
