The Art of Sneaking Around
by Rachel Lewis
The best laid plans–water-, fool-, and bullet-proof
are found the following day
a rank drum of oily rags in the cellar of good intentions
two months of bloodletting, painstaking strategy gone to waste.
And a hotel reservation
(complete with military-nee pseudonyms Juliet and Victor Tango)
will be tossed asunder under the wheels of a meddling schedule
birth control lying unimportant in some anxious teenager’s wallet
Skills lain obsolete–the expertise of easily-slipped-out-of clothings
and alibi constructions double fact-checked and watertight
Rendered yesterday’s news
bitter the ugliest
bitch in the litter
a modified sonnet
the bee in my bonnet
spackle the ceiling
with low muffled keeling
a slow stifled moaning
ordinance zoning
-laws are far easier to comply with than the matters of heart
and disrobed flesh that’s flushed in the stagnant air hanging thick
with mosquitoes eager to sample skin sweetened with sweat
frustrated breath eased by well-water-ice cubes
rock formations never having felt such softskinned feet
wince from the shock of the bruises they cause
on the soles of fugitives.