3. The Card Players

The deal was done and stamped
  on brown rough leather

of the parchment tabletop.
  Crooked spindly legs

that propped up play
  hardly held its own weight,

let alone the gravity
  of smoke, spirit, connivance.

We held our fists
  close to each other

clenching secrets,
  as if in mistrust —

stiff cards in hand
  like little rectangular blades

to cut
  and bleed our lives away.

Future like the present
  was dark and unlit,

swirling unsteadily
  in tobacco stench

permanently embedded
  in the wood of the walls,

furniture, clothes,
  and our hearts.

But at least
  this was a gamble,

a zone of unsure light,
  an unpredictability

to hold onto amid all
  the grey, brown and blue —

cold,
  deep blue, and more blue.

[based on Cézanne's The Card Players,
oil on canvas, 47.5 X 57 cm, 1893-96]