Draft One

She will always keep your secrets safe

Slip it under conversations

Deftly with a sleight of hand

Brush it from sight

Talk of moss that grows on her thatched roof

Or the dogs that reach for love in deserted blind alleys

Or the china that broke on her Persian blue rug

If you give her your poems

They will always be gathered with the smile

That she receives the first rains of the year with

Falling slowly, falling fast on her small kitchen garden

And when she stopped at the foot of the tree

Eyes glazed by moonlight and insecurity

For a moment before she decided to sit

And look up at you, at its highest branch

Keeping starboard watch like a sailor at sea

Did you resent her then or did you simply forget?

The silent eyes that placed you in her night of stars

And one day they say, she dissuaded herself

From waking up

Tucked between a hundred weightless dreams

Warmed by your secrets that have finally found

A home behind the closed space of her sleeping eyes

And secrets of her own, you will be surprised to know

That played with yours, quietly along the seams.