Art Thief

by Lee Sharkey

Who can explain this ? We know who the agent is, but who is his

     agent ?

What path did he walk to the vanishing point ?

What is this seasonless corpus fat and elastic ?

We have become wind and muscle

What he stole was a reminder, but its absence also is a reminder
Was it the slope–shouldered women holding handkerchiefs to
     their faces ?
Come April, frogs chuckle again how many years nested
     in memory ?
Where are the bright fibers that drifted down in the light through

     the mill’s tall windows ?

Last year’s grasses fold as if with a sigh over each other

Ghost gray and platinum

What is a safe and undisclosed location ?

Whose is the deity that eats his children ?

Palestine is at his doorstep

Soldering a tree out of spent teargas canisters
Smuggling workers across the border soaked to the shins inside a

     water tank
Who is sitting in the stripped orchard breathing in what they

     once tended ?

Was it the hand on the child’s shoulder ?

We have only the wealth that does not impoverish