POKER HAND #38

POKER POEM: Here's a poem I wrote about poker for my poetry class.

Nines (Villanelle)
(Alex Carnevale)

Should have been an actuary.

—Doyle Brunson

The other life, the one without mistakes.
Before three boys stored a gravestone in a closet,
The odds were worse than bad I’d lose my stake.

Three nines, the thought of paperclips coming down
in sheets. One of those boys was deaf or dumb
The odds? worse than bad I’d lose my stake.

Before I walked the tides of earth like a king,
fore I knew ace-nine to be nothing to wager on
The odds were worse than bad I’d lose my stake.

Bill Evans tapping keys, my eyeballs feeling rounder
in their orbits. One plays cards because of what else
The other life, the one without mistakes.

What did the gravestone read? What couldn’t I see?
My hands speckled with iron, I bore witness at the table
The odds were worse than worst I’d lose my stake.

Start anew with decks of unshuffled nines, no desk job.
I’d play deep into the night, come home to her corneas
The other life. The one without mistakes.
in which home to me comes the biggest take

after Lou Lipsitz