"Some things only she knows...."

My friend brought in some issues of The New Yorker, and in a 2006 edition I found and immediantly fell in love with this poem by Margaret Atwood. I don't care how scary this woman is. I ♥ her.

Secrecy

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 your throat
like the reverse of uttering,
a word dissolved
into it's glottals and sibilants,
a slow intake of breath--

And now it's in you, secrecy.
Ancient and vicious, luscious
a 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.