Words 2

© 2011 David Jasmin-Green

Words
clashed in his head,
warmed him, hurt him
or merely teased and made him smile,
their multifaceted meanings lost on the wind
or disbelieved.

They had a difficult relationship, those two,
a pairing that didn't work at all well without lubrication,
so their dialogue got all mixed up in an alcoholic haze.
Disjointed sentences floated before his drowsy eyes
evolving new gists in the many layered strata of his brain.
Choice phrases sprung him up or knocked him down,
they made him laugh or cry, sometimes both at once
when they spilled from his or her lips
in a not always pleasant frenzy of abandon.
 
Later, while he snored beside her, one hand on a lovely breast,
the river in his head
randomly rearranged the spent words into an untidy bunch.
Covertly it carried them away
and washed them up on the silted flats
where unrecorded words, partially solidified promises
and drunken promises end up
scattered in a meaningless jumble.

While he slept he sobered swiftly.
In the different light of the new day
he walked the length of the beach
picking up bits and pieces,
reflecting every fragment of what was said
and salvaging the little that he could,
an archaeologist summing up a version of the truth.