Heist

You, beautiful, with a mother’s diamonds
in your pocket, hands full of clear plastic
baggies, blonde hair pulled back with a bobby
pin. We’re rolling joints on a faded porch,
we’re into rocking chairs in the dull light
of a mostly faded moon, we’re uninsured, 
nervous, shaking as pieces of burnt toast pass 
through our fingers. I want you to bring me 
into the vault room so we can make love on
stacks of money, I miss your pink earrings 
and the way you blow smoke rings, perfect 
circles no matter the occasion, you are auburn
-haired and slick, you miss leaning against 
the stoop, you should come home to me but 
I don’t even know where home is anymore.
I inhale, the joint flaking away beneath heated
pressure, sometimes I’m the fire and other 
times I’m an unbrace heart; loyal on the brink
of pink and carmine, this love is rusty, old,
shimmering, thriving only on mist and will.
You ask if I miss it, the life I used to lead,
wondering whether or not I was going to eat 
anything other than pasta and pancakes, rain-
slicked lip-gloss bottles, discarded, hiding
in my grandmother’s closet, I used to be better
at picking locks. These days I’m hiding behind
barn doors and farm words, my history has been
sealed in seeds-bloomed-scarlet tomatoes. Do you
really think I miss the hothouse, the longing and the
cheek bones, no. Late, maybe midnight, maybe 
one-thirty, it’s time to close the doors of West 
hundred-something street. You tug my coat tail 
in a bodega, showing me a large grey cat playing 
with a nut. I respond by grabbing your waist. 
Couldn’t wait? You ask. I feel your grin against 
my lips. Tuesday comes and I’m still in bed with you. 
My grandmother would have been upset, and I’m
not sure she still would have loved me if I told her.
We hang out in the MET, sitting in the laps of water
nymphs. I’m going to make a new family, I’m going
to teach you how to three-plate carry, I’m going to
love you, open, in the arms of Manhattan.