The Secrets of a Woman

She knew all the secrets of what it meant to be a woman. She knew them all a long time before I ever could untangle what it meant to be a man.

So, that one summer morning, while there was still dew wet on the grass she took me by the hand to show me all the things she had found out.

We walked down by the river, the day waking up around us, as she told me what she knew and I had yet to find out.

She knew all about those secret places that belong only to women and what could be found there. She knew what secrets could be unfolded and opened, even by the tentative fingers of those too young to become lovers. She took me down the sloping riverbank under the tree that dipped its branches into the river and gave me all her secrets to unwrap, to touch and to hold.

She taught me about kisses, and the way that lips can keep secrets and how those same lips can tell the fingers where to touch and explain to the hands how to hold and how to let go.

She taught me about the warm. She taught me about the dark and she taught me about so much about all her secrets before she turned in my arms to discover and unwrap those few simple secrets that were mine.