the thief of left socks 
  
if you're wondering where all
the left socks go
i'm here to confess anonymously
that all these years it has been
me all along--
it wasn't an easy choice of
profession but someone
has to do it--
you see i learned mischief
in my father's rocking-chair
stories & i found that i could
live everywhere & no where 
all at once--
i open old yellow phone books
collecting mildew on 
front porches & pilfer 
addresses-- ball them up 
tight & swallow them like wads 
of pink chewing gum--
these places to become my homes--
i follow my instinct of place to
i sleep beneath the restlessness
of another dryer--
why the left one? you ask
because it's the first question
most people ask if they have
a chance to meet me--
i don't have a real reason but
i think that absurdity is
the only & best reason for
action-- on nights when i'm feeling
alone i will take out my back pack
full of all your left socks &
i'll lay them all out under a 
belly of moon--
there is, of course, the polka-dot
tube sock from michigan &
the one with the schnauzers
from illanois &
i line them up in tandem
like waltz partners--
my home state of pennsylvania 
has delivered me many 
white & black fruit of the loom 
with the heel chewed through
from standing or from 
walking up & down a gravel road--
i like to put them on &
feel my own heels 
naked in heavy august air--
summer has the best months 
for sock theft-- people
are more careless-- 
i swipe addresses
off mailboxes while everyone's too
busy finding orion's belt every night
because it reminds them that
there's a waist big enough to
lock them into a night sky--
you wouldn't notice me 
if you passed by me in the 
local library--
i'm always sitting by
the pile of atlases with a 
puffy back pack brimming 
with left socks tucked nicely away
so as to not give away my identity--
i page through book after book
of oceans-- of rivers i try to 
untangle from the pages
& stuff into my pockets--
it's most thrilling to collect
all the places you'll never go to
just like i collect the lives i'll 
never get to live in every left
sock i take from the 
hearth of a dryer--
it's never been out of malice--
i never meant for you to feel uneven
or uncertain but this
is what it take for me to feel human
again-- if you want to join
me i'm spending the night
beneath your dryer in the clamor 
of the machine-- waiting for the right moment
to take just one for the collection--
if you want to trade i've been
looking to part with this toe sock
from new york--
its reminds me too much of sleep overs--
& too much of addresses that were nearly 
too heavy to swallow--
as for me i go barefoot--
i got to feel 
the dew-softened soil beneath my
toes-- dig my whole feet into
the sandboxes & the ocean bites
each of my toes one at a time--
someone else like me took my left socks a
long time ago--
i hope i meet them someday--
maybe i will crawl under the dryer
to find them there too or we will reach 
for the same atlas of middle eatern
europe & blush & pretend not
to know what each other is doing there--
next time you lose a left sock
don't think of me--
this is our secret-- i promise to
keep it safe-- to wear it in honor
of it's foot--
to look at it only by the lonely
light of a moon when i lay them all
out to dance along & together
& so wistful in their emptiness