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It’s possible to keep a secret
Eat a piece of fruit every minute
Of the day for example keep a bag of raisins
Hidden nearby or really listen
To music like a cryptographer
Sucking blood from a mysterious word
My daughter’s word for music
Is munitz if that’s the way to spell it
She keeps saying it until I turn it on
My Bonnie lies over the ocean is another song
That eludes me I’m not used to the feel
Of saltwater sloshing in my ears
It’s true when my father spied for the CIA
His cover name sounded fake
It was Victor T. Redvane I just failed to keep
That secret there's no need
To pretend a counter-revolution really came
And my body still lies over the Bay
Of Pigs it’s hard to know if a threat is real
Inside the shell of my daughter's ear
A tick recently injected the soft skin
I tweezed the tick and put it in
A jar as evidence just in case
We were watched from outer space
Steve Healey is the author of two books of poetry, Earthling and 10 Mississippi, both on Coffee House Press.
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