Secrets

I long ago hypothesized That the world will willingly hand out secrets As generously as pennies If only you are alone While doing your begging.

There’s ragged ones hanging from branches in the rain-dusted forest. Hopeful ones hidden under red rocks in my own sun-dazed desert Tragic ones weaving through the pier’s pilings But the dawn sea has the most variety.

Search in the foam of the baby blue water In the broken clouds of the candy sky You know them already They were in your nursery.

(Or dig in the dark depths of the deep dangerous darling you call your dopplegänger.)

I sing a lullaby While I steer my body through the mist And let it cooly caress me in a slivering kiss It is agony, but it is my daily baptism.

What did I do?

She buried the answer deeper than I could dig Before my fingers started to rust. I must have surpassed all the sinners of the past If I have to be cleansed at every dawn.

Now, I plead How many will it take? But that’s one secret Even the sea hasn’t been told.