THIEF

It is daylight still
but I have gotten inside, who knows,
the way the worm
gets into the dog's heart.
These houses,
I tell you, are heartless.
They seem all light and air,
that glass, a skin
as fragile as an animal's.

But upstairs
a man may be lying on his back
until a gulp or start wakes him.
How long I stand listening
for that tread I fear
from the floor above.

I've stepped into
a room all reds and greens,
the soft, sharp points of Persian rugs,
of mohair furniture
I rub myself against.
I hold a bone china box
up to the light and a lovely,
calm emptiness
opens before me.

I walk through a doorway without doors
then another, taking up
knick-knacks pining for use
and breathe on them.
No one for years has been so kind.

From here I look out and see
the last of the sun bond
to the gingko leaves, that gilding
so like astonishment.
Then a wind stirs the branches.
I am aware of this circling
from the ground up.
Inside me too there's something
that can't stop.

Even now a woman
may be leading an aproned boy
back with her groceries.
I feel that swivel of my neck
to the outside door, to the place
where the action happens.
Oh, what do I steal
but a little of her happiness?

I could test each wall
for another way out.
But the dog is in the yard,
big Doberman with his awaiting bark.
Also, the roll of a high, dark hedge.
Surely, though, I am safe. Surely
I can open the refrigerator yet
and in a cloud of light
drink deeply the milk
of whoever lives here.