Crazy Eights
by Bart Edelman
In the recurring dream—
Sixty-six nights straight—
God and I play Crazy Eights,
Betting fate against the odds
Either of us has to offer.
It’s a deliberate process,
And we take our time.
Occasionally, stillness is broken
By a spirited run of success,
Yet we both stroke our beards,
As if something, far greater,
Waits wing-like, to fly.
I’ve vowed, for a week now,
To turn the table—
Create a different surface—
Change the contest to a game
More daring and provocative.
After all, it’s my future at stake;
God appears quite set with his,
Smiling like a benevolent devil.
Perhaps, then, the end is not near,
As long as I match rank or suit,
Discard what remains in my hand—
Exact payment for the life I’ve led.
Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack (Prometheus Press), Under Damaris’ Dress (Lightning Publications), The Alphabet of Love (Ren Hen Press), The Gentle Man (Ren Hen Press), The Last Mojito (Ren Hen Press), The Geographer’s Wife (Ren Hen Press), Whistling to Trick the Wind (Meadowlark Press), and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023 (Meadowlark Press). He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been widely anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Fountainhead Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, Thomson/Heinle, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others.
