almost rhymes with earth, the solid dirt
we stand on which is neither one single thing
nor solid, but rather amalgam and alchemy,
boulders and grains, plates adrift on magma
seas, sinking, rising, quaking, tested
by forces seen and unseen.
Like those pocket aces you slow-play
among felt-table strangers, it can feel
like a lock as much as a lark, even
as some small voice mutters fold,
remembering well the particular sting
of that kind of loss, the dwindling chip-stack.
Was it faith rewarded when the hydrangea
we’d rudely pruned, having refused to bloom
for years, finally popped back, a dusty violet trio
returned to prodigal parents? Was it faith
or some other ache in us the whole long time
we silently agreed never to mention that empty space?
