Poker Night

Poker Night

Once or twice, or thrice a year,

On semi-planned trips to this place,

Generally coincident with

Thanksgiving, Father’s Day,

And impromptu mid-Spring

Somethings, I make the cross-state

Trek for a family nickel-poker game.

Between the cackling laughter

And the timbre of change on

Plastic-cloth upon plastic outdoor

Tables set in a sun-room that’s at

Once indoors and outdoors—

Oscillating fan whirring and

Breezing whimsically—we catch up, we bet.

CanadAnglish, a familial language—itself

Breezy and dime-turning—passes

Across the thick-pinked lips of

Ma Tante-matriarchs who’ve outlived

Mothers and sisters to carry on

The blustery, simple-loving wisdom of

Pure octogenarian feminism.

Plastic pearls and

Faux diamonds:

Aces, big hearts,

And Spades.

Risen queens

And aging kings:

A shrinking deck.

Dipping from and depositing into

time-worn, plastic butter tubs

Ringing with emptied coin-purse

Treasure, cards shuffle between hands

And spouses and nephew, ad hoc:

Not quite cheating: whether it’s

Pity pots or guileless altruism.

Ma noncs, long-given to the blessings

Of near-deafness, raise and play

Mechanically, winning pots when

Necessary, staring quietly into time-stained

Corners for generations gone, whose

Spirits remain, overlooking the empty

Seats they’d left us, that I now proudly warm.

Puns distill punchlines—now the jokes—

cross English to French to repetition.

Un-funny except in their cadence and

Volume, bounce about long-passed

Virilities—sex, still a funny innuendo— and

Long-passé celebrity gossip: Elvis and

Liberace and Willie Nelson’s Loose-Wheel.

And we recount, just as we are

big-pot ante-ing, blind-betting,

What it is I—still a child in their eyes—do.

I fall into the easiest trope

Of all. “I write poems,” I say.  

“That pays your bills?”

“That and computer stuff. It buys my nickels.”

We talk about mortality, finding

Winning patterns in ages,

Addressing cancers as nuisances—

Uninvited, inconvenient visitors who,

Like diabetes and forgetfulness, have

Found their ways into our tells:

Wagers on the autumn seat re-shuffling.

We skirt the perimeter of talks I’ll

Never make them have, about my “special friend,”

Card-holding, but knowing that I’m special and

Was always sensitive, and, frankly always

Their favorite. They’ve known me as long

As I’ve been me and I know that I am loved:

I learned love from them and I know they know so.

Next time, I think, as they slide their

Relative winnings into containers—

I, leaving mine for takers—

Eschewing the oppressive jingle of

Coin in my pocket, I know I’ve won—

Even without counting—a seat among

Greats: all Hearts amongst Diamonds: and all Royals.

Read more of my poetry, essays, and stories at Momentitiousness.com