Ultimate Game of Cards
by David Michael Jackson
The wind in the willows
whispers,
waits not for this poet whose
words are frozen,
and yet as restless
as the limbs which sway
carelessly like
youth which is
lost,
squandered in the ultimate
game of cards.
Aces and eights,
the dead man’s hand.
We are all holding aces and eights
and the wind in the willows
cannot help us.
I deal
a joker here
a queen there.
I am a lonely duece who
cannot sleep so I listen to the wind
in vain waiting for the
whisper.
***