Safecracking

by Alfred Corn

My gimlet attentiveness detects the numbered
key and pitch latent in steel, dialed up
and gauged on a sprung scale.
Call them bolts of digital melody
unrolling under these practiced,
sand-papered fingertips.

How I learned my scrupulous trade ?
By calling each safe a day in the mind,
the player placing a long-shot
bet as he sounded the knocker
affixed to a door on secrets, treasure.
Mine, mine, when the tune and click-tick turned
out right, by clockwise clockwork — but only when
the music box decides, of its own accord,
to swing open and let light flood the contents.