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Gustaf Sobin

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Cardplayers, Cavaillon

for Michael Ignatieff

for tiny
sums, the

hearts
slip...

(smooth

knuckles,
erratic

thumbs...)

__________________

…each
hand

narrowing,
fans

out, folds
back, deals

its
oblivious

fates...

__________________

by lamp-
light, a

crack
of fresh

cards,
rush

of sleeves,
1ike

censers
the

black
ash-

trays
fuming…

__________________

slim
mirrors the

thumbs,
rubbing,

wedge open.

__________________

mock-

recoveries
of an un-

sound-
able loss,
that

trim
flourish,
mnem-

onic.....

__________________

squints
wet,

porcine, his
lip-

tethered
smoke

coiling, bleu
celeste.

__________________

or, in a
ray

of hawked
gold, a

wrist

spinning
kings.

__________________

pe-
nultimate

nurseries
of

night, the
breath

held a-
beyant in

a
draft of

plied
numbers.

__________________

wizened,
a

nodding
odd-

man-
out, nick-

named
‘the

numb
angel.’

__________________

as
these

sleights-
of-
life,

pinched

into
tiny fans,

spread

scarlet...

__________________

 

By Gustaf Sobin, from THE EARTH AS AIR, copyright © 1982, 1984 by Gustaf Sobin. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Pubishing Corp.

Page(s) 25-28

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