Secrecy // Margaret Atwood

Secrecy flows through you,
a different kind of blood.
It's as if you've eaten it
like a bad candy,
taken it into your mouth,
let it melt sweetly on your tongue,
then allowed it to slide down to your throat
like the reverse of uttering,
a word dissolved
into its glottals and sibilants,
a slow intake of breath -

and now it's in you, secrecy.
Ancient and vicious, luscious
as dark velvet.
It blooms in you
a poppy made of ink.

You can think of nothing else.
Once you have it, you want more.
what power it gives you!
Power of knowing without being known,
power of the stone door,
power of the iron veil,
power of the crushed fingers,
power of the drowned bones
crying out from the bottom of the well.