Reticence

you think

that I don’t bother to edit

that I let it all pour out 

from this incision 

that I have dug with the pen’s tip

over my heart 

but I am always keeping secrets

I am awake in the darkness 

burying a third of what I write

back in the bedded garden

where the night flowers 

open their pale petals

there are words 

on the tip of my tongue

that I close my lips over 

and swallow down

along with the coffee 

in the morning

as much as I would like to see 

if I could call up 

the sea level rise of red 

from beneath your shirt collar 

I keep a kind of despotism 

in my pocket

to rule over myself

that I may not make you 

uncomfortable 

under the artificial lights

where we are struggling

beneath two alternate 

sets of rules

worldly and 

otherworldly