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I dreamed there was a robbery
and there was nothing I could do.
The thieves came in, four or five of them
(guys from New Jersey)
and they were going through the house
and looking in the closets,
taking what they wanted, piling it up in piles
and moving it out in batches to their van.
So I started suggesting things
like the old ugly tape recorder, a silver thing.
They turned it on and it worked
Hey! this looks good! they cried,
and I gave them chipped dishes and an old wool coat.
They were discovering
things I didn't know I had,
things I'd seen at auctions,
speckled dishes and collectibles
and strange clothes on racks.
I thought about calling the police
but there must have been some reason that I couldn't
and I didn't want to interrupt their work.
They weren't taking anything I needed.
They didn't want my instruments—or my poems.
Then, in the middle of it all
as I stand distracted by a newly emptied closet
a huge man with a wide smiling face strides in.
He's wearing a heavy brown overcoat.
Susie? I'm Uncle Carl!
I didn't know I had an Uncle Carl
but suddenly, there he is.
As the robbers move around us
piling up the last bits of clutter, carrying the last things out,
he holds me in a big, comfortable embrace.
go back
©2007 Susan R. Gilbert
www.plasticduck.net/susangilbert
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