The people with nourishing smiles have nearly all left, or will soon leave, or I’ve left them.

I must have groped my way somehow to people whose smiles are empty to me.

Or my smile is just as empty, and the sturdy and bright and true faces are finding each other, and the world is just.

There are delicate filament tethers, to a last few people I love. I feel that they’ll snap if I pull on them.