Sharing

If you can keep a secret longer than it takes you
to walk from my mouth to the next available ear

you may learn from me a thing or two
about life itself, or perhaps less than life itself.

It may be the one insight needed, a last piece
to a puzzle you’ve had sitting undone for decades.

Of course, maybe the secret will only light up one absurd corner
of your own prosaic life, and you’ll shrug it off at once.

Or it will be in cipher form and so poorly made
you will lose interest at once and forget it before you’ve cracked it.

You may in fact only learn about my pretentious, pompous persona,
hiding place for a weakling attempting to seem strong.

All you need to do is approach me and ask to hear it.
I swear to you it will be told to you at once. You needn’t hang around.

I’m not the kind to make you stay with me longer than is necessary
for either of us. I will say I am the kind who needs to let it out,

in riddles sometimes but mostly in plain speech. Maybe you
are the same and you will go at once away from me and tell another.

Whatever: the world is always burning more or less everywhere
and if there are things we know that will douse a flame or more,

we should pour them out. So come close and listen. Maybe there’s something here that may save us all that will only work if shared.

If it’s time for sharing it, and you and I
are the only ones here, can we refuse each other?