if i'd done worse you'd have known

Outstretched in my gray
corduroys,
the winter night settles into the black sand
as I think of theft. Different thefts. I, having never taken

psychotropics
even once
still see things in the dark.
(Thieves that I'm thinking of) they persist the things
in the twirling unseen stars. These are still city stars.
Not stars, here.

I am in the dark, outside the city.
The three black plastic buttons
of my coat lock
me in for the night,
and are not enough.

if I'd done worse you'd have known

No stars here
around the fire, where

you've got to touch the flames to feel them