Memory as secret box

Having worked on a dissertation about Chile's torture truth Commission- memory has a secret box.

Memory has a secret box.

 

The women read. And the typist typed.

Opening boxes - truth comes to light.

 

In opening the box of someone else

she found her locked. her younger self

 

In societies tortures done by the state

Her own wounds her secret ache

 

And as night left and morning fell

She typed her tears- a secret well

 

A pain she'd never known she’d had

Someone’s daughter, a likely lad

 

Writing those wrongs in secret ink

Writing other wrongs. The secret links

 

A secret writing of a secret wrong.

50 years of history. Long

 

If a wrong doesn’t make a right they say

then writing out  a wrong it may

 

open up  that  secret box.

Open it up and tell me, soft

 

The morning’s moon will sooth, you’ll see

With that secret becoming a part of me