The Winning Hand

I sat alone this creaky night
Playing as a cat alone with string
My whimsical game of cards
Solitary and silent

The cards, full of the colors of a life once lived,
Now dingy and tinged with yellow on the edges
found themselves stacked edge by edge,
Top by top,
One suit here and one number there
Until one was last to hold—solitary and as heavy
As the anvil it was forged upon.

On its face
Sat a grinning wraith,
The Master and Judge of all cards beneath;
The Dancer that is both the Music and the Dance
And the hand that grasps for payment
As the song of life fades away

The card left my hand
And fell like a molten block of iron
To crush the cards once alive and joyful
Into shards of glass that spelled “goodbye”

And the rain that would never cease began to fall.

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