<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The thief<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing petty about this thief He covets your horde, this magpie, Not content with originals and first editions, This thief rifles your cupboards, slits pillows <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Miriam Jones<\/strong> is a freelance writer and editor. She is studying for an MA in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Winchester and won the poetry category in the 2017 Winchester Writers\u2019 Festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The thief There\u2019s nothing petty about this thief who cuts your purse with a practised flick of his knife and pockets its contents. Copper, silver, gold \u2013 he wants it all. He covets your horde, this magpie, wants your shiniest thoughts \u2028to turn over in his beak \u2013 a foil for his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19571"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19750,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19571\/revisions\/19750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwho cuts your purse with a practised flick
\nof his knife and pockets its contents.
\nCopper, silver, gold \u2013 he wants it all.<\/p>\n
\nwants your shiniest thoughts \u2028to turn over in his beak \u2013
\na foil for his shabby nest.
\nHe raids your bookcases and cabinets
\nturns out drawers and roots out
\nGreek, Latin and German fragments
\nshreds them all over the floor.<\/p>\n
\nhe pilfers the utilitarian and everyday \u2013
\npencils, keys and dogs \u2013
\nleaving only things that write, lock, bark.<\/p>\n
\nand, in the suffocating confusion of feathers,
\ncrawls under the bed to loot the shoe box
\nwhere you hide our names.<\/p>\n