Thief
by Mary Ann Meade


I confess. Did I not steal from the bowl
A dozen packets of raw sugar. Best not
Steal the fruit. Repeat life as a plum pit,

My chums laughing, their lips still moist
From coffee, doughnut, the raw sugar.
I confess. In a dream, I kiss those lips.

Taste life, not so much the sweetness,
As the scent of a rose on a fine table.
Would that I could gather up the rose,

The vase, the purified water. I confess
To everything: the bland, the sour,
The bitter. I confess to swallowing

the air around the table. No, I never
stole your tip or the delicious plum.
I took what luck gave, the raw sugar.






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