The accidental thief
Written late February 2013
Her third poem in so many days picked up on the theme of her
budding romance with a married man, yet far less blatantly portrayed as in the
previous two poems.
Yet, this poem is no less powerful for the intensity of its emotions
it is attempting to convey.
In this poem, she paints herself as “an accidental thief,”
claiming to collect the small things other people are unaware they are relinquishing
to her, “glimpses of smiles” the “gestures of kindness,” the “pieces of dreams
and devastation and concealed consuming passions.”
All this harkens back to the previous poems to a man who unconsciously
seemed to transmit his affections for her. Only in this poem, such is a statement
of fact rather than mere conjecture. Things are “inadvertently expressed
through eyes,” in moments when the person thinks they are unreadable.
How much of this is wishful thinking on her part is hard to
say. But it is clear that she is building a case as to why she should get
involved with him, the first poem expressing her intense desire, the second
poem plotting how to accomplish this, and this poem claiming he wants this,
too.
She says she doesn’t do this intentionally, collecting these
things, “bits of souls,” nor does she intentionally snoop.
She says she is not trying to assemble this jigsaw puzzle of
clues to justify what she calls ‘Almost criminal”. meaning her involvement with
a married man, knowing (as pointed out in previous poems) it will change his
life.
She also claims she is not assembling all these things in
order to rescue herself from her loneliness, although she clearly in.
The conclusion is that she can’t help herself. She sees
these things in him and believes that he wants what she wants.
Is what she seeing real or not?
It is difficult to determine if she merely sees what she
wants to see. Yet the intensity of the attraction reverberates throughout the
poem, as each of these poems builds up pressure for her to eventually take the
next step.
She wants him, feeling guilty at first and is at first
reluctant to express it, but she cannot contain her passion, and finally, reads
these hints from his gestures and looks, convincing herself that he wants her
in the same way she wants him.
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