The Would-Be Thief Pauses to Read About Homer’s Iliad

by Carla Sarett

The Famous Poet, as I write, is answering questions about chilly love and Taylor
Swift and why the young Roman burglar paused in the middle of his unimportant
robbery to read a scholarly work on The Iliad instead of just riding the elevator down with his newfound stolen book, since after all the guy was an aspiring thief and could have grabbed a few classics and I figure the Famous Poet (I know you know the one I mean) has a highly original point of view on the Roman burglar’s decision as he invariably does like I could ask him, just to take an obvious example, if I should splurge on a turquoise umbrella with exuberant pink polka dots or go for a more sober option even though, of course, all precious umbrellas fly away at the first hint of wind and only the cheap ones remain with their broken metal ribs or I might ask about the spectral presence last night, how it shyly clung to my waist as I slept, but I hear the Famous Poet scoffs at the idea of an after-life that caresses us, preferring to believe in the remote Disneyland of the dead though even he must know that wherever the dead live, they’re not resting in peace, they reject the concept of rest and beckon us to jump on their painted carousels or enter their Tunnels of Love and while the lines for that twisted ride take forever, the dead wait without raising an ashy eyebrow and discuss the causes of the Trojan War, something about capricious or cruel gods or maybe sex, then they start forgetting the loud weeping and even the city, as I weave the last days of August and the Famous Poet tells me what was stolen.

Carla Sarett is the author of She Has Visions (Main Street Rag), a full-length poetry collection a poet and two poetry chapbooks— Woman on the Run (Alien Buddha) and My Family Was Like a Russian Novel (Plan B Press.)  She has been nominated for the Pushcart, Best of Net and Best American Essays.  She is based in San Francisco, and earned her PhD from University of Pennsylvania.