Confessions of a Pickpocket

The phone brings news—

if you believe in news.

It is bad—if you believe in that.

This month’s rent is in danger, and

right on time the oily priests appear at my door

with painted faces and

a warrant to search the place for contraband—

any unprofitable squanderings,

any stolen time.

I let them in, what else can I do?

They’re right to charge that

I’m short a few coins,

that my record argues against

leniency, that I appear to believe

I’m special somehow,

but that, really, I will always be nothing

but an unlicensed distributor of magical thinking

and a corroder of consensus.

I remain silent, as always, and turn

to search through the cushions of my magical sofa,

which faithfully offers up enough—

almost as if all is well no matter what

the phone may say—but I keep that to myself

while they smugly count up their booty.

Poor things, far more slave than master,

they’ve never once caught on that I pick their pockets

every time they visit.