A crook in gloves can gain each prize
with crooked guile; no one’s wise.
A crook with gloves can go into a store
to take a lot away
and not a trace of dirty
fingerprints there will stay.

The police will never hold you,
not even have found you.
Off you will have skated—
not even a thumb clue
left, so they can’t hound you.

I was a crook with gloves that would erase
cops’ looks…behind left no trace.
But then one rheumy night
out from my nose dribbled just a tiny little bit
of snot that a dick found and went to the lab with it.

And then that was it, the whole clue;
DNA can hound you.
I’m incarcerated.
Should have put plugs into
nostrils, where drips out goo.
Or should have blown nose;
should have known.
Now I atone.