Drinking Water

Two glasses of water wait to be touched by hand and lip. The water itself remembers the taste of whiskey, sarsaparilla, Fixodent; the salty funk of being swallowed down the throat of one experience after another. Memories are in the water swimming hither and thither. The glasses contain minds, set aside for the drinking of. The water also drinks, swallows parents, grandparents, wives, multiple layers of children; they all swirl so slowly in the water that only equally slow thoughts can reveal them. Two elderly men reach for the same glass of water at once. There is a momentary confusion, lifetimes interchange like a mixed drink, they begin to speak of people only one of them should recall, as if the past had always been but one glass after all.