Slow Smoke/Words
WORDS
He never flinched, and never a muscle stirred;Speechless he stood beneath the stinging whipsShe laid upon him in each syllable That crackled from her lips.
Yet in his heart a river of anger rolled,And swept his words into a groaning jam,As when a torrent chokes a rushing stream With logs across a dam.
But when she flung at him the dynamiteOf epithet and insinuating doubt,With a mighty moan the pent up tide gave way, And the jam of words went out:
Words cut by a madman's ax; words brittle with ice;Words pointed, barbed with sleet and torn of branch;Words that cascaded, ricocheted, and split, Fell in an avalanche.
Down with the flood of wrath they pitched and plunged,Until at last there came the utter peaceThat settles on a stream when logs go out, And flood-tides find release.