poem of the day 12.12.13

to catch a thief

who’s eighty years-old

and can barely see at this point

can be challenging

especially when he’s there first thing in the morning

to pilfer your paperback books and dvds

it means you can forget the saturday times

and the cup of coffee you so desperately wanted

the one that’s helping to quell the hangover

the sore feet that hurt from walking five miles

in shitty boots with holes on the bottom of each one

the freeze of the december air

that has you shivering right down to your bones

it means you can forgo dignity and pride

so that you can muscle up real close on the old man

while he’s scanning the goods

farting and wheezing when he bends

as you stand there like the long arm of the law

like a mall cop in a trinket store full of teenagers

protecting what isn’t even yours in the first place

a true centurion of american commerce

making like you are fixing rows of dvds

or selecting books for display

simply doing your job

all the while keeping an eye on this old man

as he takes dvd after dvd off the shelf

and puts them in tall piles like he’s building levees

this isn’t what you want to be doing on a saturday morning

this isn’t how the job was sold to you

you think you’d rather be in bed with the wife

post-coital from a morning quickie

with the newspaper spread over the sheets

and the whole day in front of you like a banquet

rather than hoping this old fart doesn’t steal

another bogart or paul newman film

and that you don’t have to tackle his ass and call 911

but life is what it is

some people have it much worse than you do

and you realize this

at the very least your holidays are paid for

which is why you stand there like a secret spy

trying to figure out what you want to eat for lunch

counting the stacked dvds over and over

wondering if the old man slipped one

in the back of his sweatpants

like he did last week

when you turned your back for a second

figuring a cool cup of coffee should be enough

to cancel out the headache

thinking that quick pull on donkey this morning

was kind of like making love

that there will still be a few hours left in the day

when this is all over

and that the new york times will still be there

after the old man takes what he wants and flees

because the world makes news every second of the day

and it’s always the same

nothing ever changes.