The Man of Steal

Gambit vaults over towering gates
An eye trails ruby ribbon
His coat's a flame going out in a roar of wind

Street to street, the French quarter
is threaded by him. His hand to your mouth
He turns it over:
"Is this your card?"
and it is.

His lips a stanley-knifed corner
of a painting, right before it's lifted
from the frame in the night.
No alarms and a swiftness
                        that
demands
to be paid not by the hour
but by the count of pockets picked