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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Vittoria Vaughan

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Gambling

They'll say you couldn't help yourself
so tried other means, as addicts do
to get what you wanted, me
I simply poured coffee as thick
as a thief, packed you off with a pony
left to lie like an idle wind-fall
upon the breakfast-table or stashed
in the empty underwear-drawer
then turned my back, emptily
kissed you across the threshold,
kept waving you on your way.

They'll try to make it up to me
as relatives do, try to cover your loss
pretending I didn't really know you
had it in you to stake everything
upon the world ending,
a fatal crash in stocks and shares,
a cup triumph for Hednesford.

It wasn't for nothing
I followed you to the edge
of town where the bookies swallowed
your pride but because the uncertain morning
our son first went to school alone when I shadowed
his reflection in a cold shop-window came back
to haunt me. I knew my job wasn't over
just because you thought you could
stand on your own two feet.

Heads, tails: I wasn't one
for gambling but I'd studied the form
from the credit agency, studied the form
from the court and bailiff too, knew the odds
were stacked against us, were longer
than any accumulator, the premium bonds
or those same six favourite numbers you clung to
each Saturday coming to our rescue. After all,
nothing was now worth the paper it was written on
except your life insurance and the betting slips
you suicidally poured your love and sorrow into
the moment before you rolled the die.

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