ALL THE GOLD I HAVE IS STOLEN GOLD by Liza Hudock

After the TV, tablet, no-name
bags, and Gigi’s sapphire ring, 
I thought I was cunning
pushing cash halfway 
through the paper feed
of a broken printer.
It was the last place 
he would look, but he
found the money and ran off
with the printer too.
He said he was born 
to find it, an octopus
who can find its way
out of a jar with the lid
screwed shut. I watch a video
of the experiment.
All amorphous color writhing,
spasmodic turning 
of the lid, a burst  
of tentacles, and then out dumps 
the pillow of a head.
It’s like the Big Bang, 
but not, because the cliché
about heroin is true; no high
is like that first galactic-skinned 
expansion. He stole until 
we had nothing left to pawn.
No one had to die for me
to see what was never mine. 
The controller fixed its 
laser on a vacant wall.
A knot of cables in the corner 
charged the air.