A Blind Eye for an Eye

I learned to steal without sneaking

around the place my mother slept

is fear of cutting off my hands like she does
and feeding those fingers, still soft
despite the scars and calluses and cultivated
arthritis
to a bastard like me who learned from his thieving father,

who waits instead.  Oversleeps easy.
Her bed grows cold sometime after her leaving

and I walk.  Without a pause around two corners
next to her head or at her feet is where she keeps
her money.

She never asked me why I shouted so angrily at her:
I raised my voice to hear myself louder
Snapped every response to the growling house –
A dialogue with my disgusted, tiresome self.

I learned to stop stealing.  I’m still always sneaking.
always lying when I promise to apologize to her
and when I mean to return what she lost to me

I can never return the life she wasted for me.
I can’t even return mine to her.