The Vanilla Thief

The vanilla thief

Is enjoy a cigarette

At the bar

By the bay

Where her lover

Will betray her

The cusp of her drink

Has a touch of lipstick on it

But that’s intentional

She’s painting a portrait

That will be available

To her lover

When she finally shows up

Her first betrayal

Is not against

The vanilla thief

It’s against time

And punctuality

A second drink is ordered

And a plate is served

Even though this bar

Does not serve food

The owner knows the thief

And he knows she hasn’t eaten

So he took the time

To make her something

In his apartment

Above the bar

And bring it down to her

A bowl of spaghetti

With a cracked egg on top

And some shaved parmesan

The thief’s father died

When she was very young

So this paternal show of care

Is deeply meaningful to her

The post-dinner crowd

Is dallying with their dwindling

Conversation

And in a few hours

The crowd from the opera house

Will show up

To talk about which notes

Fell flat

Since this town

Cannot host real talent

The thief is only here

Because she’d gotten a tip

That this month’s shipment

Would be unsecured

And even though the ease

Of her latest operation

Should have been a tip-off to her

She’s getting older

And suspicion costs as much
As exertion

On certain days

And she wants

To see her lover

Later on, when she’s sitting

In a cell

With no windows

And no outside light coming in

She’ll see that nothing

Was a coincidence

An easy job

In a town

Where the woman

She’s loved for years

Has an apartment?

It was all so convenient

And in her younger days

She would have seen it

For the trap that it was

She’ll feel like a bear

Sitting in the cell

Thinking about the look

On the face

Of her love

When she entered the bar

And shortly thereafter

It was swarmed with men

Men with guns

Men with alarm

Men with a smugness

At having caught

The thief couldn’t be caught

But, they thought

They didn’t catch that thief

She aged out of that thief

That thief was her childhood

That thief was her youth

That thief would never

Have sat quietly

And let herself be taken

That’s the thing about a trap

There’s a choice in it

Once it occurs to you

Sometime before

The complimentary spaghetti arrives

That you’re about

To be taken into custody

The decision to sit still

And wait for it to happen

Means you’ve accepted

The retribution

In some cases

It’s the bullet

Of a scorned man

Whose wife you’ve been seeing

For years

While he toils away

At a desk

With his blotter

And his dossier

Of all the trickiest criminals

But when it’s vanilla

There’s nothing to avenge

Not when all you stole

Was already stolen

To begin with

You take one more sip

Of your second drink

Before you allow the men

To remove you

From your seat

It seems to you

That your lipstick

Tastes like lilac

And you’d never

Noticed that

Before