A game of cards

It’s out of fashion to derogate yourself 

with words and watch your money gone to careless numbers,

though now we can hear our poker chips fall again

from the velvet bag rattling them. Eyes through smoke

express pity for our sunbathing snakebirds

lost to the world in their deep blue perfect din. 

Extinguishing our lights in the morning shone

on the green felt, we take one more restful sleep 

after sunrise, having studied the raised reliefs 

on our Everglades deck of playing cards.

​

We don't know where else to go from our house

that’s come alight in an orange dawn, so we awaken slowly

and, lighting the stove, read letters from

yesterday's mail. Strange colors rise from wax seals. 

We think we're changing like water does

from irregular pressures. We remember breakfast:

eggs cooked in butter in a pan, then ham with its 

sugary vapors ascending, dining alone 

atop our bedcovers after a long party.

​

It was safe then, and drowsy like cats dozing

in the room. Though we’ve scraped from canvases

such wonders as tornados in valleys' caves, and pockets of air

that strike the sea in wedges of whitewater, we can't erase

these raked red lines. Still, the medicine sways 

out there somewhere, perhaps riding the wind on a cliffside

perched on a clear stem. We'll bring out the portmanteau 

we brought here and dry its twin wings

strangely colored like paper and tarpaulin.