Gambler’s Luck
I have been to the afterlife—
not heaven or hell, but just
after (and, yes, I am still alive).
The afterlife that’s
been fed to the living is
a lie, there are no heavenly
pits where fires arise. No,
the afterlife is a casino.
Flashing lights and
blinking noises, the dead sit
around tables, gambling away
memories from the future.
There are no clocks
in the casino (as is tradition),
one spends a lifetime searching
for the soul out of their grasp. I found
him sitting at a blackjack table
(my favorite), and he lost
my high school graduation on
a bad hand. But when
he strikes twenty-one, my future
is in his palm. He smiles, but suddenly
I want more, I want to know if he
remembers the weather on
the day I was born or what
the last gift he gave me was.
I need to speak to you
one more time, but the moment
my hand is on your shoulder
I find I am no longer
in that casino, but instead, at a
lakeside grave and in a future
gambled away.
Susan Romance is currently a junior at SUNY Geneseo, with a major in English and a minor in film studies. She splits her time between her home in Cheektowaga, NY and Geneseo, and enjoys writing poems, listening to music, and playing with her cats.