Pickpocket BY KEVIN KILLIAN
Last night whistling I passed
by their alley, saw them in a
sidelong blink of light from
traffic, a speeding car, then
I went home. Dreamed of
gold skies, black money. I
felt so stupid, to talk
about them feels stupid. I’m
the sullen red Sun.
Bernadette leans from tenement
windows, sailors keep searching
world after world for
Bernadette, and her arms
are black, her outstretched
proffered palms all milky.
From them coins drop into
Pickpocket’s pockets freely.
Pickpocket’s face is pocked, his
arms are pocked. I threw
his face in a lake to make it
ripple, he smokes a
cigar to an orange hot hole in
his face, a glow. At night
the Sun’s a kid brought behind
the woodshed and abased.
Kevin Killian, "Pickpocket." Copyright © 2015 by Kevin Killian. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow, a partnership between the Poetry Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network.
Source: PoetryNow (PoetryNow, 2015)
