The Birthday Thief
Am I a thief? Perhaps. I stole several things today, little treasures, and buried them deep within my notes. But today I also shared a secret, that knowledge that today, this particular o’two twenty-two, I turned the great two oh- how the decades flew by fast.
Yes, I stole several things today, playful things, but really borrowed things, for now I’m returning them with my words:
- a rounded pair of panes through which the whole wide world is framed,
- a cheeky rose that blushed by any other name,
- a watch of which might turn, might flex, might bind, might twist, but worn today upon the wrist,
- the petals of some new moon’s mysterious midnight fleur cast with elegance upon
- a pair of silver stalks, nay a silver-gray, nay a shining, steely spray, all planted in
- a ground with lacéd grommets sound,
- a charm yet cast, imprisoned as if by fetters, dangling down
- from a seldom-riskéd, supple tract of love’s once true affections,
- a doorbell’s ring worn so clean that its white and brass did bling,
- the hues of rubies, pearls, of gold and obsidian’s black sheen,
- and at last I stole a romantic thought that rhymed with this.
It wasn’t out of want or need that I took these stealy clues; ’twas out of a yearning to be noticed, a since forgotten truth. I longed for nothing more, my birthday wish I now suppose, than to be caught by surprise with each. Alas! All that then transpired was but another secret stowed in silence. It’s silly to keep track now, for even I have come to doubt the sentiments that daily go swirling, violently, softly, gently, round and round my crazy head. And now that I know, I’ll try again to steal the show, just waiting for the playful applause I covet so. “Thief! Bravo! Bravo! Encore!” more seductively this time “I’ve still a whole heart more, Thief. Bravo, bravo. Encore… Look up. Look at me. Look here. See me now? Yes, I’m your burgled bauble.”
So as words of nervous intonation spill like milk into my foolish lap, my skittish courage flees to the comfort of a nap. I ask you again, am I a thief? Perhaps, when the ruse is over, you’ll get your four-leaf clover. Until then just watch your shows and pay no mind to where the lost time goes.
Yours unruly,
The Thief