I. A GAME OF SCRABBLE
His fingers hesitate over
his row—it is stammering
with i i i. Here nothing can stand
alone, let alone i.
Insipid he finally puts
and judgment
leaps on the board with a sweep.
The tall child makes gory, doubled.
The smooth tiles spell
relationships, accidents.
… eath, … eath. Fingering
a d, one pauses there. A d
would do; br would be better.
Beyond the balcony the sea
flees in long quivers. Now here is the q
Friday before Crusoe-he has used his u
in ruins.
Below, ‘slick and lovely, the frangipani
boughs, black as snakes and bare, spring
into pink at the top. Has anyone ever made
frangipani?
She has … ight; the sea suggests
an the sailboats shed it, the mango shines it back,
br the mango says. She has only an n
and the whole island disappears: where is the moon?
Not one thin star? Delight’s chance is lost.
Instead, gone appears; then vein,
now vasty. Everything stops
for argument. Vasty? Halls, halls
of death, says the woman, wringing her rings.
The sun drops a little, but vasty
is removed, and there is video. Two tiles
are left, e, r, and go on lied. The man says
that is foreign, the woman says
songs are here. There is no dictionary.
Lieder stays.
The woman has won. The child is sad. The man
looks at the words, connected, without context.
On the rail
the tiny dragon, alligator, lizard,
over his eyes’ black specks, smiles
and lieder, death, vein, night,
just as the sun makes its move
to leave, shatter and meld and clatter
into the box.
II. BRIDGE OF KNAVES
Knave says the book: slippery,
a shrewd fellow. Here, all dignity,
stuffily clad, in profile or not quite,
hunts with the pack;
falls with no sound face
down on felt. Lifted,
takes on his rank, jaunty, reticent;
looks past the players.
Christened a Club, so is he dark,
time-out-of-mind, if dates matter. Club?
He prefers to claim deep chairs, deep rugs,
hot andirons, snow beyond glass; exclusions;
but his half-turn still says, too,
old caves, old hunts, new hunts; eggshell
heads, eggshell bones. Say what he will
he stays the ancient heir.
The Diamond Knave that points
his almost-smile, says, glitter
on velvet or flesh like velvet; cut
or be cut. True, rain and sun
fling trompe-d’oeil imitations,
flash and go; and bastard cousins,
terrapin, rattler, carry
that family insignia.
The lips of the Knave of Hearts tilt
up. What he has is different.
He cannot set a necklace, break
a head, play the grave-digger.
Variety is his claim. He says
his 3-inch sac will give you
an empire, a suicide; says it
has the ultimate connections, last and first.
Three Knaves know how absurd
is the fourth’s eminence.
Spade must be the dealer’s
irony; yokel, upraised:
the root’s, the earthworm’s visitor,
the flower’s clownish uncle.
But in cardboard, one-eyed and natty,
in the end, he says, depend on me.
III. A DREAM OF GAMES
The game is dreamed for the rules.
When dusk takes the green diamond
set in dust, even the players’ ghosts
are gone: the three-bat swing; the ghost
that hitched its belt, its cap; dipped
for the resin, hid its paw; leaned
like a pointer toward the tools
of-ignorance crouch. In dark the rules wait it out.
The game we dream writes lines.
where love means nothing, and service
is neither waiter, priest nor stallion,
and let is a net’s whisper.
The game is dreamed for the rules.
Monte Alban’s old rule dreamed
that ball-court from which the loser died
Chaos, soft idiot, is close
as breath. But the games appear,
celestial in order; contracts we make
with light: the winner humbled,
the loser connected with his law.
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