in bed this morning I leant in close and whispered my newest secret into my husbands open ear
I have nothing more to say, nothing more to write. his smile started slowly to spread and brighten his whole worn craggy face, then a chuckle that burst like a humpback whale from the still waters, into a most riotous raucous full- bodied laughter that filled every fold of our small bedroom as tears ran down our both cheeks
even our golden dog caught the wave of hilarity and joined in wild and gleeful orbits, offering a red sock clenched in her smiling blond muzzle.
the poems I would never write, the way morning light creeps like a thief across the winter ceiling bringing hidden treasure to a forbiddingly cold day
the way elephants so love their babies and cry if they die, even as we are crying in mirth, still we call them animals and prey on them, even as we humans slaughter our own
the way we insist on being right even as we refuse to admit that being right is so often wrong
so many things I will now never say, the way the trees bow low to the ground in sacred prayer along the river bank in Santa Fe, born of practical regard and efficient beauty like the skin of grandmothers, and how being back in my mother’s old home was sad still I did not choose to visit her grave
and how lightly the world keeps turning round and round without the extra weight of words that live in the many poems not written, thoughts not shared, truths not imagined, lies not told.
