Your Secret Need

You come as if against your will
Your soul on fire with flaming need
Of darker things, you long for still.

That itch, the urge you can’t control
Needs scratching desperately, but how
To cool this fire that burns your soul?

Words unspoken, barely known
Can’t voice this THING
That roils your gut and makes you moan.

As a girl you felt it on father’s knee.
His steely looks that took your breath
When he said, “Young lady, come to me!”

And go you did with trembling hand
Across his lap to lie and wait
For the punishment that he’d demand.

The years have passed and you are grown
Into a woman, but in your heart a girl.
With sins for which she must atone

And still this yearning undisclosed
To friends or lovers still unspoken,
To ache, to burn, to be exposed.

To bare yourself on Daddy’s knee,
To feel his firm hand warm your flesh.
And so tonight you come to me.