Private Life

Private life is like the dolly you are not
supposed to have, and hide beneath your
underwear – totem, talisman and confidant –
bare, worn and cracked from years

of hugging, ripping, praying to it, throwing it
across the room – heir to all the hell
and bloom of your exacting passions, gleeful
negligence and inexcusably delicious rage –

heir, as well, to tense resolves kept to yourself
that no one need know just how cavalier
you’ve been with body, money, sex and soul.
Lodged there like a beaten pet, it does

command a certain anxious mute respect.
You have committed no infringement
of its single rule for which you’ve ever once
had to atone. You’ve left it happily alone.

.