scaling mrs. Vinson's tree for mistletoe
she's off to teach a music lesson
and I am the teen assigned to clean
her house, by the youth employment service.
I feel no compunction whatsoever against rifling her belongings
against searching her house, her garage, her crannies,
for interesting things to steal.

I will waste all the time I can, sweeping the patio
climbing the tree and thinking of Steely Dan
and of all the money I can make selling this mistletoe
last year girls with baggies of mistletoe circulated
this year I will clean up

thing is, theirs was nice and clean, domestic, and this
is wild and scarred. Their mistletoe was soft and girly,
and mine's got scabs on its knees and zits on its back.

the idea will die on the vine, but high above the neighborhood
on the branch with the mistletoe, clutching
the power to make all the girls kiss me
I am swaying in the winter wind
and here comes a car down the street.