Thief's Flight
by Jonathan Eastman
Far off, a bright saphire burns a hole
in blue jewelry-tray sky, freaks
its arms through soundless air,
thick glass and lids' pink veneer.
My own arms flutter to the laughing
desert, disappear in sequined dunes.
When vision returns I am awake,
the stewardess over me--coaxing jinn--
asks vodka? Compari? Nothing stirs me,
not even the terrain between
her breasts--smooth but coarse with goosebumps
like fine sand, or the hum of jet engines
rising. A moist jet brushes
my cheek. Transition burns.
I've turned the tumbler too far
and Harry says, Balance, Jack--feeeel
it! But this is a dream.
Pyramids waver close like lovers
and the desert melts to scotch and water.
I look down from my window at Dad in the yard.
He rakes piles of leaves into perfect
pyramids. Mother downs Passport in the kitchen.
How long have I been thirsty?
When the last door swings open,
the safe turns to stone. A nest of snakes
swirls to frenzy from a cursed sleep.
I swear to give back every keepsake,
every precious bone I've culled in a flash-
light beam, and finally I lift them--my arms,
my sensitive soft hands, my fingers flaming
like torches above an open sarcophagus.
Far off, a bright saphire burns a hole
in blue jewelry-tray sky, freaks
its arms through soundless air,
thick glass and lids' pink veneer.
My own arms flutter to the laughing
desert, disappear in sequined dunes.
When vision returns I am awake,
the stewardess over me--coaxing jinn--
asks vodka? Compari? Nothing stirs me,
not even the terrain between
her breasts--smooth but coarse with goosebumps
like fine sand, or the hum of jet engines
rising. A moist jet brushes
my cheek. Transition burns.
I've turned the tumbler too far
and Harry says, Balance, Jack--feeeel
it! But this is a dream.
Pyramids waver close like lovers
and the desert melts to scotch and water.
I look down from my window at Dad in the yard.
He rakes piles of leaves into perfect
pyramids. Mother downs Passport in the kitchen.
How long have I been thirsty?
When the last door swings open,
the safe turns to stone. A nest of snakes
swirls to frenzy from a cursed sleep.
I swear to give back every keepsake,
every precious bone I've culled in a flash-
light beam, and finally I lift them--my arms,
my sensitive soft hands, my fingers flaming
like torches above an open sarcophagus.
The Thief Contemplates His Profession by Jonathan Eastman
I have walked up my private stretch of foreign road
to look out across vineyards and be heartened
by my obscurity and this night sky:
a clear package of stars without strings.
Above the farthest hills a harlot moon teases
focus in blankets of a sinking thunderstorm,
her long tresses on soft fire,
her body seemingly fixed in the scudding current.
But my cycle is like hers--rustication
before returning to work--and just as my skin tightens
against a growing chill in the country air
she sharpens as she climbs full and stark naked
into the pure purple solution of midnight.
The Thief Remembers His Last Matinee by Jonathan Eastman
Once I thought some things safe--like film stars
locked in their parts, who we are in the mirror
of ourselves, the fathomless dark before the final
face. Then a stinking shadow sank down in the seat
beside me and reached out for the tender jewels
between my legs. Burning in a flood of shame
I stopped the hand but not the horror of everything
become plain. I saw eyeless corpses dancing on the screen
and under the river of light swam a green shark--
older than love, cold, waiting.
I escaped through burgandy curtains that parted
like gums into the maw of the city, where drained
of the bright blood I had entered with, I could barely
tell normal malignancy from damnation, the primal breath and bone of our race
from what wanted to consume me and what I'd gathered in the shoals
of memory. My resolve grew soft, my pores sucking
the greasy air, I floated like a bloated fish
in the summer's procession of nights that slowly
petered out, undulating into harmony
with the inertia of stars.
Thief Daydreaming on the Job by Jonathan Eastman
Idling for a moment in a hollow
gray lot between tenements,
I press my forehead to cold window
and wait for a scheduled fence. Lifting snow sharpens a brick edge
lit orange by the guttering sun.
The muffled slapping of shot pistons
lulls me, half waking,
into dream of your upturned face--
amber mask more precious than spring warmth after this long winter.
Never able to hold you long on this verge
I examine your body quickly
like a pearl in my sensitive fingers.
I long to make you cock
your smile, loosen a silly strap.
One steaming day, top naked, you sat back
on your lawn chair, sweat stains bleeding into hot
cedarwood and I waited till your head fell
back so far it snapped, and you quivered
like a stunned rabbit--you hands, all
shaking, flew to your soft throat to guard it
from the dreamt blade of my steely eyes.
Thief's Winter Wish by Jonathan Eastman
I wish the young goddess
next door whose hair
is not brunette or blonde--
a shade of dark wicker that reminds me
of syrup--would forget
the new snow and bright
houses, her handsome husband and children
lapping over the glare of white lawns
and look up at me one long glance
through her breath clouds
tangling in the thorny bushes. Not a dog,
not a sparrow, no cruel slapping
of pistons against loose panes
could spoil our silent connection.
Only her scream could break the peripheral stillness,
of neighbors' complacency, of this wish
while watching blood trickle and pool in the gutter.
Unnecessarily I'm falling inward now, shivering
like a lost Walmart bag in gusting wind.
Vitreous flecks dart my glazed eyes--winter insects
anxious to get in, and an anonymous hum
must be the droning of long-forgotten lawn mowers.
She could pique me with her silent sighs,
let me slowly blossom inside her warmth.
I could collapse into the penumbral darkness around her body
where reasons wouldn't harden like ice.
She could call to me at this moment of sharp delusion
before her oblivious going, her turning into the cold face of the house.
next door whose hair
is not brunette or blonde--
a shade of dark wicker that reminds me
of syrup--would forget
the new snow and bright
houses, her handsome husband and children
lapping over the glare of white lawns
and look up at me one long glance
through her breath clouds
tangling in the thorny bushes. Not a dog,
not a sparrow, no cruel slapping
of pistons against loose panes
could spoil our silent connection.
Only her scream could break the peripheral stillness,
of neighbors' complacency, of this wish
while watching blood trickle and pool in the gutter.
Unnecessarily I'm falling inward now, shivering
like a lost Walmart bag in gusting wind.
Vitreous flecks dart my glazed eyes--winter insects
anxious to get in, and an anonymous hum
must be the droning of long-forgotten lawn mowers.
She could pique me with her silent sighs,
let me slowly blossom inside her warmth.
I could collapse into the penumbral darkness around her body
where reasons wouldn't harden like ice.
She could call to me at this moment of sharp delusion
before her oblivious going, her turning into the cold face of the house.