Between the Lines

As you were describing the novel

plot and symbolism
character dispositions,
rising and falling
actions
twists and turns in
theme, setting, time
line for line

your friend

lifelong chum
whose booze-
breath babbles
but can still saddle a
stallion sentence

interrupted you

hurdling himself
to the middle of
the mute in
your mouth
between words

to laugh and say, “ha that’s clever”

never  can your momentum
find its way back
now that the conversation
lost its slack

because he didn’t understand you

intelligence
is social currency
you mustn’t act cheap

And now three years later

three years packed into
the empty space between
the lines of this poem

when you think about that novel

infrequent but happens
time to time

you ponder what significance

a different denomination
of social currency

your friend understood in that one part

understood an
overstatement

What clever irony

the currency
of past
prospects

eluded you,

our poetic protagonist

you thought

infrequent but happens
time to time

,that your friend realized secondhand

he was always able to read
between the lines

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