i still lie (he thought)

i still lie (he thought)

And in my hotel room, I'm wondering
If you read that story too?
And if we both might
Be having the same imaginary conversation

“Cologne,” Ben Folds

i still lie imagining

he thought when he woke

on a tuesday morning

unable to recall the difference between apparently and clementine

although he felt certain they were entirely separate things

and where ever words no longer connected with meanings

he could see and even feel as if recollections were experiences

his thumb sliding and pressing

into the curve of her palm

and then with his finger squeezing

the soft pad below her thumb

these conversations wordless as a man trapped in forgetting

that echo like memories projected into an endless cavern

•

how could a jet plane that large disappear?

[like the meanings of words]

he wanted to ask her

as they held hands quietly

but when he turned her way

she was already gone

and that meaning he knew

with the solidness of bone

•

it was golden and too thick to be water

but he thought he heard her whisper honey

in that wordless othersphere of memory

where meaningless meant meaningful

apparently and just ever so briefly

he was happy as a clementine