Bob Bullitt

Bob, his wife, five kids lived
behind the grocery
in a three room flat
with two rabbits, fifty pigeons, one cat.

Within mildewed walls under a leaky roof
they ate off gold plates
with Queen Anne silver
and drank from pewter mugs
over oriental rugs.

Bob liked to run in rich neighborhoods.
The kids didn't know.
The wife suspected.
Newspapers talked of a Jogging Bandit.
"Appraisals," Bob said
was his line of work
He wore gloves and could
vanish like a quark.

No cheap burglar was Bob.
No stereos, no petty cash.
He took art. Antiques. And a cat.
His house was the Louvre of La Honda
with no visitors.
He called me once to wire a kiln,
but said he could not let me in.

The cat was the clue.
A picture in the post office of
an Abyssinian, worth two grand
hanging around the grocery
eating scraps, scratching fleas
sleeping on a case of antifreeze.

When the cops came
Bob flew
like a smashed atom
only to be hunted down.
He will be gone a long time,
the loot being worth several
thousand Abyssinians.
How do you sell a hot Picasso?
And what if you want to
let it grace the mildewed wall?
He should've heisted cameras.
He should've been smart.
But Bob is not the first to suffer
in the pursuit of art.

from Son of a Poet