June 13, 2017

solitaire

It's almost 2 a.m. and your wife is at the hospital with her son
because he tried to punch a hole in the floor sometime after he said
he was going to bed, and you can't sleep because you almost had a heart attack
when he screamed "ER!" from his room just when you were hitting your REM stride,
so you're playing endless rounds of Spider Solitaire as you wait for them to get back,
and you wonder which is worse, the pain in his knuckles or the one that got him
to the brink, while you try, with certain familiar futility, to solve the puzzle
playing on your screen. You wish you could tell him insanity is doing the same thing
over and over again expecting a different result, but there you are, shuffling cards,
losing each hand before dealing another, as if this will be the one that'll win you the game.