The Poem I Chose

Here's the poem I memorized for acting class:

A Secret Life

Stephen Dunn

Why you need to have one

is not much more mysterious than

why you don't say what you think

at the birth of an ugly baby

Or, you've just made love 

and you feel you'd rather have been 

in a dark booth where your partner

was nodding, whispering yes, yes,

you're brilliant. The secret life

begins early, is kept alive

by all that's unpopular 

in you, all that you know

a Baptist, say, or some other

accountant would object to.

It becomes what you'd most protect

if the government said you can protect 

one thing, all rest is ours.

When you write late at night 

it's like a small fire

in a clearing, it's what

radiates and what can hurt

if you get too close to it.

It's why your silence is a kind of truth.

Even when you speak to your best friend, 

the one who'll never betray you,

you always leave out one thing;

a secret life is that important.

I guess I'm starting to understand/appreciate poetry, because this poem did move me in a strange way. Hmm...