Misreading A promise as something offered without reserve.  "I do" for "I will."  The words love, commitment, trust as what I took them to mean.  Manet's La Regalade: "to pour a liquid down one's throat from a jar without touching one's lips."  The man in the painting holds his flask overhead, the liquid ready to surprise his throat with its fierce line. Why not the support of lips, the slow flooding of mouth and throat?  How many must drink open-mouthed, the source at arm's length before someone fabricates a word for it?  "Dissolution" as salt in water, a cleansing to rid sores of pain when the wound is touched, the lips kissed.  A second love as better than the first.  Longing, sorrow, regret:  words forged from experience—his, mine.  The fierce line never the same.  Mouths wide in expectation.

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