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Here's the poem that somebody
asked me to read from the book.

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It's on a lighter level,
and it's called The Secret.

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It's about a mildly
interesting practical joke

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that I played on my wife.

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And the poem, I think,
is more interesting

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than the practical joke.

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I'd found a small, pretty
little Mexican coin.

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I don't know, you're sitting
there with nothing to do,

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you decide to play
joke on somebody.

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And so I kept putting it in
different places in the house,

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in the refrigerator, and
under the pillow in the bed.

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And finally, she just told me
later she couldn't figure out

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what it was doing anywhere.

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And I think maybe she got a
little scared and threw it out.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So there went my romantic,
mysterious gesture.

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The poem is about
such romantic gestures

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that we attempt to
keep marriage alive.

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[LAUGHTER]

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The Secret.

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"I left a Mexican
coin to confuse her.

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I left it in the drawer,
with her mementos-- letters

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to and from the dead, the
oval portrait of her sister.

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Love must keep its secrets,
but not its hidden things.

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After dinner, I
slid the brass coin

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in among the seeds and the
lush flesh of a watermelon.

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It disappeared.

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The lover's version
of a magic trick

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to resurrect
mysterious strangers.

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Love must keep its secrets,
between bathroom, and kitchen,

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and in the marriage chamber.

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We try to sleep.

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In a dream, she finds the coin
wedged between her breasts.

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Lovely in my bed, she
dreams of other men

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and unfamiliar places.

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By morning, she
needs a bus trip.

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She's bored.

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I know, I left a Mexican
coin to distract her

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from love and its mischief.

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Eyes making eyes at
strangers as we pass.

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Across the aisle, I
watch her finger it

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in her blue jeans pocket,
smooth it, make it lucky.

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Such wearing down takes years.

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The bus stops in Mexico City.

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We lie together, two
strangers in a painted bed.

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'We hardly know each other
well enough,' she whispers

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'to undress in this humid dark.'

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Stars drift above the
skylight, the hours pass.

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I think I am falling in love
with the need for fictions.

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The coin glows between us.

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The coin knows."

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[LAUGHTER]

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[APPLAUSE]

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