Expensive Thrills

 By Bonnie Lyons

"Think of the thrill,” I said trying to persuade

my two best friends to rob the Chase bank

on 41^st Street we skipped past everyday

going to and from North Beach Elementary School.

“They don’t have our fingerprints yet and besides

we’re only nine. Even if we get caught, what can they do to us?”

I reasoned. We stole Clark bars, Hershey milk chocolate, and  Milky Ways

from Ligget’s Drugstore instead and made ourselves sick eating the evidence.

I never gave up this crazy plan. I told my sister

that when I too became a grandmother we’d go for it.

Two old ladies with eight grandchildren between us!

“If we get caught, we’ll start a book group

for our sister prisoners. What’s so bad about that?”

She laughed  at my absurd idea, of course, and then

it came to me: I cannot risk losing the thrill of holding

my grandson in my arms.  I give up.

Bonnie Lyons is a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.  She has published three books of poems as well as a chapbook, including one collection of poems written from the perspective of the women in the Bible.