jump the fence -- run out of ideas and the yard

(Heraclitus’ feet are sore from stepping in
the same river over and over again.

8/4/05)

I’ve run out of ideas.
They’re dragging the river,
but they won’t find anything.
The kind of trace they look for,
they can’t pull it up.
I climbed the fence
when no one was looking
and now everyone’s on watch,
digging around for me,
in the wrong place.

“You’ll never fix the mess
you’ve made,” someone said.
“You should know better,
what were you thinking?”

I had to get away from that,
get away from the petty crimes
I’ve been committing all along.
You think, or you ignore
your responsibilities,
and they send the State Troopers
out to patrol the streets, helicopters
hanging in the air over your neighborhood,
shake the windows, wait for you to leave
so they can draw a bead on you.

Someone’s bound to smoke you out—
they can wait, have all the time
in the world to catch you
in your erroneous ways,
new crimes to compound
onto the old ones.

So I jumped the back fence
and got out.

Pretty soon they’ll forget
who they were looking for.
I just hope I don’t run out of ideas first.

8/5/05