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Original Smile

Fossil remains show nothing of the first
Facial flourish dimpling a human cheek.
Was it some reflex as a female nursed
Her young one, charmed by its whimpering squeak?
(Or her initial invite to the male?)
Whatever the details of the episode,
The impact must have been too big to fail,
Thus giving birth to joy’s embodied code.
From there that proto-smile, that smile of smiles,
Began to ricochet from face to face,
Here heartfelt, there more forced, or used in wiles . . .
(Our mindreading has hardly kept up pace.)
Even through tears, or lost in reverie,
It’s stowed in us, our muscle memory.

.

.

Plan Gone Down

Your dearly laid plan’s gone down as the laughingstock
Of a cruel cosmos that’s eclipsed it with a wink.
You can degrade in half-life from this dreary knock,
Or just let Time slip its old Mickey in your drink.

.

.

Stephen M. Dickey is a Slavic linguist at the University of Kansas. He has published widely on Slavic verbal categories, and has published translations of Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian fiction and poetry including Meša Selimović’s Death and the Dervish, Borislav Pekić’s How to Quiet a Vampire, and Miljenko Jergović’s Ruta Tannenbaum. He has published poetry in various journals including Shot Glass Journal, Trinacria, The Lyric, Rat’s Ass Review, Lighten Up Online, Better Than Starbucks, Asses of Parnassus, and Blue Unicorn.

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10 Responses

  1. Jeremiah Johnson

    I like “facial flourish” “proto smile” and “ricochet from face to face” – and the all around uniqueness of your subject. Feels like it lends new significance and freshness to cultural artifacts like the Mona Lisa 🙂 I’m going to share this one with my students!

    Reply
  2. Joseph S. Salemi

    I agree with Jeremiah on this — there is a sharp use of language here that is the heart of interesting poetry. “Whimpering squeak,” “joy’s embodied code,” “our muscle memory,” and most especially “slip its old Mickey in your drink.” That’s an old Noo Yawk expression that I haven’t heard in years, and it made me laugh.

    Reply
  3. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Stephen, your beautifully composed, disturbing sonnet swept me up in a sci-fi feel with its crack-the-code ponderings on the evolution of the smile. To me, it says everything about the attitude towards mankind today where smiles boil down to “muscle memory” and nothing more. The closing couplet is powerful and poignant.

    I like the wry humor of “Plan Gone Down” which seems to pair perfectly with “Original Smile”. Thank you!

    Reply
  4. Margaret Coats

    Stephen, I know of a few scientists who consider themselves students of creation, and they say there is nothing more fascinating to think about than origins. And they are the happiest academics I know! Your poem thus has a most intriguing concept, worked out in the entertaining questions of when and how and why the human smile came into being. “Joy’s embodied code” is an excellent description, linking the emotion and the face with a term often employed for DNA. I like “ricochet from face to face” as well, as it brings to mind atomic collisions in the formation of elements. And there’s the fade-out of triple rhymes (lesser or no accent on the last syllable) “reverie” and “memory.” Good way to stow a smile as the poem’s thought concludes.

    Reply
  5. Paul A. Freeman

    I love the play in the title on the rather serious topic of ‘original sin’, then giving us the opposite and leaving us with a genuine smile.

    Plane Goes Down so succinctly encapsulates Man’s attempts to reach for the stars being brought down to earth by the Fates.

    Thanks for the reads, Stephen.

    Reply
  6. Stephen M. Dickey

    Thank you all for your kind comments, they are truly humbling.
    I was wondering whether the Mona Lisa would make an appearance here, but I think Evan made a better pick with this smile, which I have never seen before—it’s got some of that mischief that I was going for.
    Jeremiah, I’m particularly honored you’re going to show it to your students, hopefully that goes well. I feel compelled to say that when you post I get into a chain of associations—your namesake was quite the role model for me growing up.

    Reply
  7. C.B. Anderson

    As you note, Stephen, soft tissue is rarely (if ever) preserved in the fossile record. And I would bet that the first smiles were not so wide as to show teeth.

    The fatalism of the second poem strikes a familiar chord that’s darker than the inevitable harmonies of the first.

    Reply
  8. Daniel Kemper

    The thing I love about this poem is that it brings a severe irony to the fore with a warm and human affection. The irony is that those who study origins of humans, get so deep into bones and codes that they forget about the person.

    Your poem poignantly reminds us of the most important things.

    A comment on the theory (becoming theories) of evolution. They’re all in trouble. Behind the scenes, folks like the inimitable David Berlinski say the contradictions are piling up.

    In my opinion — you heard it here first — the besetting problem of all theories is directionality. Directionality. As soon as they get near anything involving defining what “fittest” means, and all that falls under that umbrella, irreducible contradictions form.

    If they regard change with the same equanimity we see geological change over epochs, or the change of ocean waves over moments, no direction, no predictability beyond a certain window (like weather), then their theories cohere nicely.

    But then they utterly forfeit all possible ability to supplant Christianity.

    Reply
  9. Mike Bryant

    I really love this poem, the evident thought that went into it and the flow of the logic from beginning to end. I also see this as the evolution of the smile as it passes generations but just noted Susan’s highlighting of the word “code.” For me that is the turn of this poem. The discovery of DNA and the rise of computer science have disproven the theory of evolution. Someone wrote that code and it definitely included joy.

    Reply
    • Stephen M. Dickey

      Thanks for the comments, very interesting to read!
      Honestly, I didn’t think the piece would prompt such reflection!
      Best,
      Stephen

      Reply

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