The Keeper
By Ann Chiappetta

You ask me to hold the secrets
Put the stories away
You must think me the mental Equivalent of Fort Knox
Accepting your dark treasure
denser than gold and so heavy you can’t move it.
So heavy even Atlas couldn’t bear it.
Locked up until the next time we meet.

the tales told are soul-stealing
corrosive
Seductive as nails down your back.

I think you stay in those stories,
beCause it’s easier than saying goodbye.
Part of you lives on in them
While within the same stories,
You hold on to the part that died.

December 2010