He unwound his heart, thread by strangled red thread.
Having searched in vain for a suitable synonym,
He muttered, “What a mess,” and left,
Punctuating his disdain with a bang of the door.
The discarded fibers quivered and with enormous effort
Strove to remake themselves once more.
Without a purpose, without a suitable descriptive term,
They found no word to give them cause.
Hopelessly they stilled and let flow brief bitter tears before they died.
The color leached from them, and all that remained
Turned brittle and dusty with time and loss.
Years passed, and the housekeeper hummed a popular love song
As she swept the floor and emptied the dustpan into the bin.
All for want of a good thesaurus. Sing alas, alas, alackaday.
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