Perhaps we didn't get away with all we'd thought,
living secondhand in the way of the self-proclaimed
mystics, in the moment,
which meant one could live for the self if it didn't
harm the Earth or anyone else, mostly delusion.
The getaway car,
the body--we'd sexed, we'd swallowed and injected,
tamping down our broody selves, heaping the
plain toast with
cherry jam. Our minds brushed sleek to curb night
blindness. But it was self-sabotage, for we'd been
thieves, green stones
of greed glistening from the gap, an undone zip
in our bags when the car shifted for a turn. For
now we neared
the end, had to push beyond what'd been easy in
the past, found we were hemmed in by conscience.
But the memory
that punished relieved us, too; hard to be selfish,
we found, without end, as into children's hands
we pressed
crisp bills. They who had seen us in pictures, in
dreams, their ideas of us a different thing than how
we knew ourselves,
which we had to accept, and did; thinking of our
small, insufficient gifts to them allowed us to sleep,
if lightly.