It starts simple.
A girl learns the alarm gates,
so she lines the inside of her schoolbag
with kitchen foil borrowed
from the drawer at home
where everything smells of coffee
and dust.
Textbooks stay behind in the locker.
The bag is filled instead
with wadded newsprint
(wash your hands --> ink.)
so the weight feels right
when sagging under
use a hard-backed Joy Harjo.
Always go alone.
Two girls look guilty.
One girl looks like homework,
and a Catholic school uniform
in a small northern plains city
is its own permission.
Bottle-green skirt.
Gabardine jacket.
The hem powdered with road dust.
You pull down
She Had Some Horses.
Nearby, Lucille Clifton waits,
thin-spined and patient,
like a woman who already knows
how this story goes.
One hand rests on the shelf.
The other hand
lets the book disappear.
Do not rush.
If a guard wanders close,
look up once
with wide prairie eyes.
Poor girl.
Good girl.
Just another kid after school.
Then step back into the cold air
and walk toward the bus stop.
Do not smile
at the sound your heart,
quick as a rabbit flushing from sage.
The stolen books warm
against your ribs
like secret medicine.