Author Information
Secrets
A secret can be
hidden, like you once were,
when you drank in the warmth of
skin and bone and tendon
of a woman with no name or face --
Hidden, tucked
away in some small
cavity, just south of
an unknowing ribcage
and a youngish set of teeth
Or it can be
as easy to see
as age spots that saturate
sun-browned, work-toughed hands
like ugly, groaning glitter
A secret can be
as red as ripened fruit,
hanging by the
noose of its stem,
waiting to
drop
into the hands of a
naked, nameless woman with an
empty stomach and mind
Or blue, like water,
sitting stagnant but yearning to stir,
at the depths of a suburban pool
on a cool June day when
no one feels like
swimming
A secret can be
kept, like the shallow
reservoir of stale
oxygen at the bottom of your lungs,
omnipresent as every breath is taken
should you ever have to stop
Or thrown away,
like the unimportant plastic
packaging that only managed to
briefly catch the eye, but
lost all value and attention
after its contents were
finally spilled onto the carpet floor
A secret is a child
trying to find out the sound of glitter
the taste of bone and tendon and ripened apples
the value of crisp plastic packaging
A secret is a book
waiting to be written
and then erased
