A Therapist Meets a Former Patient

The secrets of others live young and fresh,

spring forth after twenty criss-crossed years.

I meet her pounding away on the elliptical

in my gym. Back in town for Christmas.

Sudden smiles, adult handshake,

her words tumble, “I remember

going out to your office” and “I survived my adolescence.”

Behind the steel machines there is all

she doesn’t say and I don’t say but both of us remember clearly,

these things peep out

and wish to not be called. As I protect

the confidentiality of anyone I protect

her from herself and she colludes with my collusion.

Millions of separate moments gone as burned

up leaves, but the secrets bright and green.

Pictures of her children

on her phone, the tolerable

routine commuting on the Metro,

I turned out fairly normal.”

She feels an impulse to fill me in on the unsaid-

to-anyone, the affair perhaps

or her mother’s suicide attempt

or the wish to run farther away than this

from home – or none of this.

Whatever it might be it turns back from the brink

of saying, more smiles

Goodbye Goodbye.

Secrets tender as the smiles

of children take up a place

in the elliptic of a poem.