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THE ENIGMA OF KLEPTOMANIA

Let's list everything we do to feel alive:
Eat, play, run, flirt, bathe, drink coffee,
Get on the phone, look at the paper,
Go shopping, sing in the choir, take in
A movie, jog the leg under the desk chair,
Evaluate ourselves, silently judge the world,
Assume that everyone is also passing judgment,
Pass gas, make a pass, pass on the double
Yellow, score crack, go to the range,
Elect not to board the single prop,
Sabotage the bungee, subvert the wishes
Of those dearest, scan the search results
For relevant entries, challenge the good talker
To return to the bar that invariably ejects him,
Whistle, floss, bullshit around, fondle
The lapel of the blouse on the mannequin,
Read a poem, read every poem written this year,
Cry, cook, clean, file, run for office,
Teach a class, sit on a board, turn it up,
Turn you over, mistake a kind phrase
For a curt one, persist in pretending
To somehow carry on a famous suicide's legacy,
Upload, exclaim, admire, analyze, reject,
Flee, rush in, start a conversation,
Tuck a child in, edit an anthology,
Break up, oh where was I, drifted
Into some abstract coffee distraction
So unlike complete immersion and yet
From the outside how much alike they look,
The facial muscles, so that an observer
Must check in on the rest of the corpus
To see whether this is the highest motion
Or stillness. Oh anyway. And yet.