What

You must be luckier than lucky
if you gamble your life as I have,
pari-mutuel windows for horses,
smoke-choked rooms and shots
with beer back debating to fold
or raise, and running the table,
while boys and girls bet on love
to their detriment, tears, despair.

And so you place yourself in peril
by writing lines that say nothing
when all you wish to conjure
is what the words may convey
only through their deepest sounds, 
the sudden emblems of ecstasy.

(1, 10 December 2013: II)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander