Les plus lus ▸
Dave Bonta
Lost the letter I in a card game
& wake up still a little drunk.
The sky looks like the proverbial world
of hurt, scarred by contrails that fade slowly,
much too slowly.
Laundry flaps on the line, & I can make out
every word: Red. Black.
Blue. The dark wash.
But where is everybody?
This old light bulb is fresh out of ideas,
even bad ones.
This body wants to be thumbed through
like someone’s bedtime reading.
The kind with covers of broken-down leather,
dog-eared pages edged
in ineradicable gilt –
chance is a wan meat
after cards
to cards again
lost as a kiss at prayers
time and fear devour us
which God is glad now
to play at cards
like a night made of paper
I bled ink
clock-talk is how
I ought to learn
but one-eyed
I understand lines
and how to like
a great wrong card
who on a hunt
would not be wooed by lions
I never could have thought
there had been upon earth
a man so little curious
the world is all cards and ash
entering my manuscript
to change it and me
a poor dinner
easy in my stomach
in a king’s house
of melancholy cards
Chamber us close
in the hand—one moiety.
Like the silent woman
on a playing card, I stayed
looking upon the gallows
and the hanged man.
My clothes and I go forth
to see a play, or call
at places that understand wit
without money.
We are like ships that fetch
the queen of melancholy
for a lost card.
a hand with a king—
after I vomit I look
for good cards
her nose in sleep
is young again
late-night cards
Boy in the bay, stay
and understand:
letters only attend
the coming of a sail.
Midway, we could see
places very pleasant;
the further we went,
the more we lost sight.
At cards, I come to see
my fruitless precaution,
getting without book
when I can get the book.
pink in the east
as I go home
a small win at cards