The Secret Poem by Lisa Nickle

And she sings
as though he heart were never broken
and Hell
is just the memory in her back pocket
burning.
She sings
as though heaven would deign
to descend to her voice.
And as if happiness
is an instrument to be strummed with a beat.
She sings and she laughs as though
she has never known fear could be a pressing thing,
as though she were the lyrics to her own song,
never wondering why life brought her so far only thankful that it has.
But then, maybe, instead she sings because she knows heartache and disgrace,
she knows failure and its taste and yet… she is just singing away.
I think she knows that secret
of that dear contentment everybody craves,
and she sings.

March 9,2013