The Gambler

Blue, gambling probables, in curves,

Arranged love's atoms when they met

His gambling parents in a kiss.

Genes, gambling, stitched him breath and sex.

Now, gambling on a fan of cards,

He sits, slim, mustached, dark of eye,

Beneath a shaded, swinging light

And smokes his dream. Suspicion rides

The word he mutters to the three

Hunched men who, agents of the toad,

Abet the clock, contest will's purse,

The prizes of the universe.

Ah, will he win? Will earth, sea, air

Uncrown the toad and coin his prayer?

Will gardens ruffled by bee hum

Sustain his inching, listening blood?

Or will the queen of spades inter

The heart's white rose and raise a whip

Of wrinkling wind and scalding sand

To shake the playing of his hand?

All totters, all suspends, for all

Contracts to one play, now and now:

All suddenly, he rides, worlds choir;

As suddenly, his bones feed fire.