Your grin

I got your photo today ... looking good there bro
so much to celebrate in such a simple picture
there's you of course, lounging, ever the cool dude
there's your little boy leaning in, looking up
what's so arresting to me is the sight of your grin
that exact expression has me tumbling back in time
to so many scrapes you talked me into, infallible logic
up against gullibility on a scale rarely seen

I remember the way your arguments were built
the circles and spirals, your utter conviction
that the unworkable could in fact work if only
I'd not just say I believed, but acted upon it
like the time you told me I could fly, defy gravity
with the power of my mind, jump you said and I did
bloody knees, scraped hands, stains on my dress
disbelief, then more rough justice at parental hands

Did that cure me of my incessant gullibility
not by a long chalk, I am given to it still
to the point where friends laughingly tease me
and tell tall tales watching carefully my acceptance
right up to the point where they pull the rug out
slipping it from under my feet, leaving me wondering
where the truth ceased in reality and the lies began
we all know that truths are hidden in such games

And therein lies one of those strange conundrums
gullibility is a surplus of faith in others' goodness
and as such I am quite happy to be guilty as charged
yet despite all this I have this sneaking feeling
that the good outweighs the bad in almost everyone
in other words quite typically I still think I'm right
and the label has unfairly been given a bad name
cynic or gullible one, I know which one I'd choose

And whooshing back from remembering I look at you
at your grin, at your relaxed happy stance, your grin
I keep coming back to it as I smile at you there
feeling again the excitement of unexpected happenings
that any number of disasters never fully cured me of
my willingness to at least try, to give it a go
you instilled in me a sense of adventure that survives
and very occasionally even now defeats my shy reserve