52: one a week for a year
For years I have collected found playing cards. I pick up lost, abandoned, discarded, and perhaps strategically placed Bicycles, Hoyles, and Bees from all over the world. But I can pick up only one at a time. Even if someone drops a whole deck (like some poor soul did on a jet bridge in Germany), I can take only one. I don’t mark where they are from or when I found them; they have no provenance other than dirt and wear. Sometimes, I lose them again. Sometimes, I arrange them in artful presentations. But mostly I keep them in a small red toolbox in a cabinet in the basement.
There are 51 cards in that toolbox right now. Mostly spades and sixes. A few extra aces. Two jokers.
Someday I will find enough cards to make a stack of all the right spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds with all the wrong backs in shuffleable condition. We will play a game of Gin or a round of Go Fish. After we learn the tells of each card, I’ll put them back in their red toolbox in the cabinet in the basement.
While we wait for 52, let me tell each card’s story. Not its history as that is lost, but its present; not its individuality, but its connection, its context, its reason. The cards are randomized, but the weeks are in order.
53. Joker (2020-21)
We linger in the time between. In & out of quarantine,
after the before time & before the new time—a kind of never & now
between the 20 & 21. Between the 52 & 1.
No one here but you. The understudy. A pretender.
An ever-smiling stand-in for a damaged heart, a lost 2,
a blunted 10 of spades folded under 9’s side-eye
& the impetuous Jack.
Now’s your moment & I almost didn’t find you. I searched the deck,
the decks, the loose cards & junk drawers. The scattered
piles of found things I didn’t know were missing.
Under notes to remember & not to
forget. Edges embossed by paper clips & marred by capless pens.
Waiting to be discarded with the detritus of 52,
your laughter mimes breath & catches in last year’s airless clarity.
1. Q of D
It won’t stop singing, the connection
won’t be made. The constant litany
of ill-luck—fences & rain & cold & me
damaged & damaging, resplendent in diamonds.
2. A of S (reversed)
Dig down & surface a shovelful of stars,
holes pocked on a dark blanket of sky. Seedling
suns sown in a rich humus feed
a harvest
sharp & burning, a spoon of ripening
light. A black heart spit on a spike its fortune leads
to reverse—draws four, deals again. Caught by the ankle
like the hanged man, bound & knowing the keen
of the spade, I am left to dangle
through the coulter. When stillness comes, I fear the
momentum of the thrust. One sword stabs up,
the other daggers down, opposing bids tear at
& split the deciding vote. A disastrous trump,
excess of everything. Midas of Tar pricking at night.
Pierced darkness—a failed supposal of light.
A of S (by Henry Matlock)
The Ace of Spades is my favorite card.
But I’ll bet almost everyone thinks the same.
My mom is making me write about this card,
And it’s hard, but I do like games.
I like the Ace because it’s a leader.
And I like it in Black Jack because it’s high or low.
Although our card deck should be neater,
I always like to show
My Ace of Spades at the end of every poker game.
I sometimes bluff,
But for that you have to train.
I always have the Ace at the end of my cuff.
And I always bet the lot,
So I can get the pot.
3. J of C
Jack as in John as in anon.
The unknown victim, the protected perp.
Dear John, I hope this finds you well.
John of Clovers, Jack of Clubs, J of C. Jesus Christ.
Bath, England. 1991. A pamphlet of tourist Christianity:
There was this man. Called Jesus. Palestine under Ceasar.
He lived, he died. “Now, millions of people worship him as God.”
Dear John, I hope this finds you well. I think of you all the time.
To millions. Probably billions. He is God. god. A man born in his Truth,
in all of our truths: to live, to die. But now he is God. And we are
alternative facts. No, it cannot mean whatever you want it to mean, I tell them,
stay with the text. But I forgot the yoking & the violence & the
white noise of the operating room clouding behind me while the sugary, surgery lights
blind me from the cut. Guide the knife & give the body strength, I pray.
Guts mar the sharp line between what I know & what I cannot
name. Life seeps, inky, through sutures across the page.
Spread to the margins by a pulse turned throb.
Dear John, I hope this finds you well. I think of you all the time. Are you
still…?
A cold not like winter finds a vein, thins the blood, pares me down
from a robust lie to a silvery, slivery truth.
Outside, the snow is hushed by rain.
4. A of C
Blackjack.
5. 8 of D
I am (you are) bored & disappointing. Not really real. Barely adding up to anything worth keeping. Not even a poem. Just a paragraph. A random narrative. Red onion read (Siri doesn’t know what you’re saying), red as in purple as in salad as in peeled back—the layers of names you used to know sting your eyes. Not crying just tears orchestrated to fall rhythmically, symmetrically, evenly—left, one, two, right, one, two, 4/4, 8 little diamonds, sharp & hard. Eight little pricks of blood dripped on a card & postage-paid will define, in eight little weeks, my genetic code: a repeating sequence of giving up but not letting go.
6. 7 of C
And then there were seven.
Joanna. 1944-2021.
7. 7 of S
You misplaced the invitation, his lunch, & your keys. The morning
left you questioning your luck. Weekends used to be easy—smooth like sliding,
silky, hand into hand, alacritous with love, brisk & zealous, slipping
from your mind down your spine to pool in your belly, the full ache mocking
hunger or sickness or life, round like an O of surprise before understanding
brings wonder to a close.
8. 10 of H (2023)
Not an oil stain, just a shadow.
15. K of D (2020)
We start with goodbye.
Turned away and waiting
for the ax to fall.
16. 2 of C
Always wild you
can be anything but you.
Puppy tracks, a deuce, a 4th Ace or
a 5th Ace for children or
the unschooled. A sure thing on which
innocent sharks bet big. They push
all their pennies, all their candy to the middle;
they are all in. Will you break their hearts when they learn
you are pretense in any suit?
17. Q of C
2 to Q; a circle with flair.
Second best, unless in chess,
where she is everything. Dare
she revolt against her game? Bless
Jack to oust the King, check him with his own?
Break rank with spades and ask the hearts,
the diamonds for alliance, for a throne?
With her double in frame, she plays her parts
seductive and tired, she lures you for more—
just one more, bet. You have the odds
she reminds you. Call. Listen. Before
you tell. Your hand is on the cards.
But you hesitate, and she follows.
Brocaded gown, rose, and sorrows.
18. 8 of S
An outline tracing an empty center.
A blackened heart turned on a pike.
Infinite snowman bubbles & balloons above puncture.
You live in the curve of yourself—8 in pieces of S
upside & down, dizzying turns make
none of the difference. You are fated
to repeat, like Sisyphus on figure skates,
Circling upon yourself. & the spade
continues digging
toward you—shovels air over hunched shoulders in
predictable patterns—4 & 4 and 6 & 2 and 3 & 5—raise you & your black heart
up, up, up. Tethered movement, paired stillness in spades.
19. 5 of C
Gimme 5, five & dime
multiples of fingers
& toes.
Letters in my name, once counted
a workweek.
Rhymes with hive, strive,
drive, alive, thrive.
Reminiscent of align, fine,
tribe, wine, divine.
Odd yet round, divisible—2.5, square root of 25.
A soldier’s haircut on Santa’s belly.
Fibonacci, golden rings, prime.
Have me as a member—
you’re my favorite club.
20. 7 of D
A slew of violences, all angles
& stabs. Your habit of pain proceeds &
follows, proceeds & follows, swinging iced red.
You’re lucky, you remember,
unbreakable. Not soft
like hearts. Not practical
like spades. Not dainty like clubs. Unreachable.
Once you were lucky, you remember, once
perfection & rest. Those weeks, continents, & wonders
now dangle from gibbet & hook.
21. K of C
Now I can think only of chicken. The king
of chicken. Kentucky Fried
Chicken. Finger-lickin’ good chicken.
My son was just talking of KFC, Kentucky
Fried Chicken and how much he loves it.
He just had some, he said, I’ve never bought it for you
I said. But that’s not true. We had chicken,
Kentucky Fried Chicken, on election night, 2016.
I voted. I took the kids. The cat had fleas. We got her medicine
and us Kentucky Fried Chicken. It didn’t sit well, that day,
the vote, the chicken, the fleas. I went to yoga. Attachment
is suffering. I thought of France. And Hitler. And the failed
Maginot Line, the invading army under the gaze of the weeping Frenchman.
All I could see—watching surety march out and inevitability
march in—was the king of chicken, K of C, KFC, original and extra-crispy.
22. 3 of H
earth sun moon
mind body soul
amo amare amavi
blood sweat tears
crust mantle core
hop skip jump
order genus species
earth wind fire
king queen jack
red blue yellow
red white blue
do re mi
one two three
a b c
x y z
earth sky sea
chocolate vanilla strawberry
rain sleet snow
sea air land
father son & holy ghost
man woman child
left right center
red yellow green
morning noon night
breakfast lunch dinner
. . . - - - . . .
rock paper scissors
clubs spades diamonds
ready set go
23. K of H
What made you do it? Was it the slow press,
your picture’s frame boxing you into no
other & away from any other
choice? Or was it an impulse, a curiosity—how would it feel
being free of your twin?
Perhaps it was her power, always the Queen’s
never your heart. When did you decide that you did not want to be
you? It’s written on the cards & in the stars, a sleight
of hand, of fate, of time, of god. A roll of the dice &
you take a nap by the oven door or the garage door
fails to rise when you start the car. You swallow a coal
or a shotgun. The rope you wear around your neck
casually falls over a sturdy branch or the trailing red
silk scarf of your affectation takes the lead & drags you along.
Plummet to solid ground or slip stones in your pocket & walk
a watery depth. You could have held the knife
out of reach or just put it down, but instead, you slid it,
sinister, between skull & brain, a feint that left you
forever miming the moment of execution without execution.
24. Q of S
The Dark Lady, the Old Maid, holds the power
in spades. With strong will, she will, bring the king,
turn her bad omen, good. A man, a bower,
a jack of all spades, in trade, lessens the sting.
It’s just a game. A trick of the light, a slip
of the tongue. She proffers a flower,
serpentine, dancing away from her, lilting
wiltingly in her fist. Her widow’s dower,
tempting you to take it all. You can’t really
shoot the moon. There’s no rocket in his eye.
Resist showing your hand too soon, fulfilling
her cartomancy: her wanton & prudish hypocrisy.
Clubs never win, diamonds run out,
hearts hesitate, and spades remain in doubt.
25. 6 of H
Pencil hesitates, lightly commits, traces the fault line in a not yet broken heart.
Your lot as a middle child, confused with another, never really loved
for who you are—just as part of a run, interchangeable, a mirror
to a better twin. Equal and opposite yet more, the 9
wears a crown of your throne, parades through the deck, a pretend 6
an upside-down 9, perhaps a misplaced g, taking your place. A red
letter day when we couldn’t decide if the sunset burning red
through the horizons of your fingers or the night’s heart-
breaking appetite for sun clawing into dawn six
hours after midnight was more blinding. The parallel pips of your love
run so changeably. Two for you and four for nine or 2 4 9
and 4 4 you. Reworking the code, checking the key, reading in a mirror.
Can you see it now? Light gives hard comfort reflected in a mirror.
But not enough to recolor the hand you hold, too much red
not enough black. I bluffed for a while, kept my cards close, held nines
like hooks to catch your eye, your sleeve, your waning heart.
I need the muscle, the clenching pump of blood, the in and out like love
but not quite love. I recall the moments that meant something: six
perforated snapshots, postage stamps, on envelopes addressed but never sent, six
vignettes of me looking at you pretending not to see the camera’s mirror
giving back an upside-down memory I rotate in any direction, capturing love
before it happened, in bloom, perpetual and draining like blood, reddest
on skin, oxygenated. Vermilion not vermillion, freed from teal veins. The heart
tries to suck it back—the blood, the love, the reason, the day. It was twenty-nine
days into August, of the moon’s cycle, in a leap year. I was twenty-nine
years into the life I should have lived. One for flinching, two for wishing, six
for looking back. Lot’s wife coated in the salt of her vaporized tears. Her heart
sought her betrayed daughters, lost without her. Had Orpheus brought a mirror,
watched behind him without turning…. Fuck faith. And trust. You should have read
the hand, writing on the wall, the lines behind the lines, the palm for more than love.
I sat on a balcony somewhere in Europe. Diesel exhaust smelled of morning & love.
Picked a card, any card. Put it back in the deck. Counted down from 10, 9…
two, one, don’t let me see it. Tell me again the first line of that story, the one that you read
when our days bled together. The one that would end with an airplane at six.
The one that you breathed in your sleep on the mirror
as your chin dipped toward your heart.
You drew a card, without looking, I read my fortune: I love
a heart that’s not mine. A heart factored by nine and added to nine
turning to six, pinioned and bloody, upside down in a mirror.
26. 9 of C
Welcome to the 9 of Cheat. The 9 of there-have-been-too-many
nines in poems lately. A 9 of I-was-going-to-cheap-out-and
write-a-haiku, I am so far behind in this project. The ninth
in a club of no-one-reads-these-poems-anyway. But if they did,
they would learn that any number factored by 9 eventually becomes 9.
5x9=45. 4+5=9. 22x9=198. 1+9+8=18. 1+8=9. 7x9=72. 7+2=9. They would
read words like, any number initially increased by a factor of 9 loses its own identity and instead takes on the characteristics of the 9. But they would not understand
what that means.
Nine nine nine nine nine. A moment alone.
Nine nine nine nine nine nine nine, Separated from others,
nine nine nine nine nine. to become the other.
9 9 9 9 9 Serial numbers
9 9 9 9 9 9 9 a serial number that
9 9 9 9 9 factors to a poem.
27. 10 of S
One. No longer alone but still
you have nothing.
One O. Binary:
on & off
hot & cold
love & loathe
cleave & cleave
you from yours.
O One. We feel your sorrow,
too many and not enough—
convenient to J-Q-K and
shunned by 9, you stand
wide and akimbo, protected
by your knifey battalions, five
on five spades poised to keep
everyone out.
One O One. Begin.
Start again. Repeat.
28. 4 of H
We’ve arrived. Just outside of what’s important. You try
to mean something, but instead
you are too much for wild &
not enough to win. Less than bronze, not even show.
4 as a warning and as a threat—
stabbing in defense of all you love
or want to love or someone loves
more than you (do). All points & angles
in balance. A disappointment,
a stalemate—on your mark and ready—
no reason to go.
29. 9 of S
Dig into the end of the summer
the end of the numbers. Shovel
the first dirt on a calloused
year I would bury in
August’s erosion,
cradle under fall,
September’s
tender
hand.
30. J of S
I write in anger. I poet in anger.
I drink & eat & clean in anger.
I’ve decided I need a gray camouflage hoodie in anger.
I am the jack of anger. The jack of fuck you. The jack of I’m not
listening or interested or pretending to care.
The jack of I don’t need this.