Dirty Deal Blues

Kevin Young

Best advice I ever heard
I learned


at the poker table:
Shut up & deal.


I keep hoping for diamonds
or a handful of hearts


& getting only clubbed. Spades
to dig an early grave.


She said she was feeling flush;
turns out it was just a bluff.


I never call them
that raised me


since I split home.
My closest kin named


No One.
And him long gone.
University of Virginia Virginia Quarterly Review
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