Silence of a dead word

He never uses a word twice.

Articles went early. He's been a man

of sudden nouns and runaway verbs

ever since.

A specialist in the rare 

pink meat of language,

synonyms are his strength

though it weakens every day.

His speech has the strength of pastels

watering down the sky

to a color clenched in babies' blankets.

Meaning waffles into approximation. 

"Thin" replaces "flimsy" in a compromised clause.

He loses some implied movement

so he gestures.