by the window of his hospital room. So late in the day
and he won’t let us cheat. Cards slipping on his rickety tray,
the orderly rows collapsing into one another,
his hand diminishing, he turns over the one card
that won’t fit anywhere. We couldn’t finish.
Wait, I said, we’re almost done. He shook his head.
Luck, chance. No skill involved. No will. No bluff. No time
to start a new game. I left my father waving in his window.
Days later I bought a deck, shuffled the stiff cards, set them up
the way he’d shown me, and—beginner’s luck?—I won.
Can you win a game you’ve played alone? No need to display
a poker face to yourself. No kidding, he said, I just won too.
My father’s a joker. Bruno, our neighbor used to say,
you’re a card. So no surprise what he taught me:
when you’re done you have nothing in your hand.
Copyright © 2025 by Donna Masini. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 26, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
