My Father Teaches Me to Play Solitaire

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.

Credit

Copyright © 2025 by Donna Masini. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 26, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

“I think we both knew it wouldn’t be long. It was a time of uncertainty, anxiety, dread. In the face of such things, in the face of chaos, my impulse is to make order. In this, my father and I are alike. So I loved laying out the cards, building, card by card, the seven columns, creating patterns. Little phrases of hearts and clubs. Black and red. I didn’t know the game, didn’t know you had to give up when the right card didn’t come up. Random shuffle. Chance. There was nothing you could do. No strategy involved. Just the cards you were dealt. And it was just like my father—an honest man, a good man—not to cheat when we’d come so far. You’re only cheating yourself, I hear him saying. So, this small, intimate moment with my father. But, of course, it’s a game you play alone.” 
—Donna Masini