TRAJECTORY OF A THIEF

It’s simple, a life
Of eccentric guessing
You move

To California, one night
Drunk you climb
Every fence in the neighborhood

And no one shoots you
And fog washes
The church steeple

Clean, months
Pass, you sell your car
To a surfer, move

Again, America roils, a man
Walks into a bar and then drives
Into a tree, you move

Again, one love
Recedes and another beckons
Smiling, your roommate

Gets rich and it befits
Her, the sun
Struggles over your eastward

Facing sill and it never
Occurs to you
To wonder how

It’s happening, it’s simple
Yves Klein invents
A color and it kills him

You steal six hundred thousand
Hours from god and fear
Capture constantly, one wriggling

Dactyl amidst the day’s lapidary
Scansion, you carry on
Unreasonably and bloodless

The moon is a rock that salutes
You for it, you forgo
Certain dignities, others

Are thrust upon you, animals
Curve to your touch, a schoolboy
Named Nimer Abderrahman

Writes 'Fire is tasty
You imbecile,' the leaves
In the trees in

The park ignite and you climb
The fire escape to the roof
To chart the buildings’ unwavering

Ballet of windows, a bullet is
Cocked nearby, the cops drink
Beer from Styrofoam

Cups on the street below
Ted takes you out for turtle
Soup, each piece

Of its floating meat
Wholly disparate, the cherry
Blossoms arrive then

Dissipate triumphantly
As does the sting
Of winter, the cephalopods

Adapt, an anonymous
Chinese woman catches
You when you trip

On the subway, the rooftop
Reads GODOT, the waitress
At New Wave Diner calls

You Professor, it’s simple
The wind hits
Your lips and you’re

Pleased, a deer hits
Your father's car and you’re
Inconsolable, a

Family of skunks makes purchase
Beneath the floorboards
And the impending decision puzzles

You—the stink or
The killing it
Takes to rid yourself

Of it, of them, who else?