That Silence

My cousin's face mid-story waits

for me to laugh like I always do.

The punchline lands the same way it used to land,

lands where it used to land true.

I smile. My mouth makes the shape.

It doesn't sound like before.

He's telling the part where I tripped,

where everyone bent over,

where we all laughed then,

before I knew better than to feel fine.

The silence after a dead joke

is worse than no joke at all.

He keeps talking.

I don't tell him it died.