The New Thieves

One night my lover said: You must be learn to be like the new thieves—they never steal, they add. They enter rooms without force and leave hairpins, envelopes, roses. Later they leave larger things like pianos: No one ever notices. You must be like that woman in the bar who dropped her glove so softly I put it on. Or that man who offered his wife so carefully, I thought we’d been married for seventeen years. You must fill me with riches, so quietly I’ll never notice.
            The next day I brought home a woman in camouflage.  She looked just like me and talked just like me, and that night while I pretended to sleep she made love to my lover. I thought I’d accomplished my mission, but as soon as she left, he said: I knew she wasn’t you. I knew by the way she kissed.
            I tried new things but nothing eluded him: Shoes like his old ones, scuffed in the same places; keepsakes from his mother; books he’d already read. He recognized everything and threw it away.
             One rainy afternoon when I couldn’t think of anything else to give him, I went to an elegant bar, the kind with leather chairs and soft lights. I ordered chilled white wine, and suddenly, without guile, the bartender smiled at me. That night while my lover slept next to us, we made love, and the next morning he hung up his clothes in my lover’s closet. Soon he moved in, walking like a cat, filling the house with books. My lover never noticed, and now at night he lies next to us, thinking that he’s the bartender. He breathes his air, dreams his dreams, and in the morning when we all wake up, he tells me that he’s happy.