if i had a son, and i never will, i would want to impart
to him all of my accumulated knowledge from years of playing solitaire.
klondike is also the name of a fictional telephone exchange
that if you dial will take you to 555-fucking-nowhere
and that is where i want to go now
when she told me i was playing solitaire to pass the time, the agony of waiting
each phone call escalating in a way i was not ready to understand
describing a course to somewhere i was bound to
but was certain i was not going
i would tell him how i'd begin to see the cascade when i closed my eyes,
would dreamt of searching its files for an impossible card, or one that would indicate
that it was finally over, yet there is no payoff
in winning, still clicking through to another....
i would tell him about the time that edie played drew her last breath and was xed out
and i lived in a free cell for 2 straight years.
a friend used to joke about playing strip solitaire, and how appropriate
that seems now, having become indistinguishable from internet pornography,
they say they made the computer game only to teach
people how to manipulate a pointing device
but it persists now as a means to teach me how to keep
moving when i am all but a dumb terminal.
hearts and diamonds on baize
looks just like xmas.