Three Card Spread
As children, our cups
were never full; we learned
to build our own thrones out of sticks and
mud from underneath the bent
willow. I experienced
tenderness under that tree at fifteen, and again
when a hurricane flooded our back-
yard, laying bare
our roots, our connections
to this place.
The Queen that raged and ruled inside
me resembled
my mother—they both held
the same heavy gavel and the tips
of their noses turned up just slightly
to the gods. My Queen’s long, lace-
layered cape swept by the feet
of the masses, touching each one who cared
for royalty, even a couple
who didn’t. Queen of
cups never full—but always
covered—finally dips her toes
into my ocean. Ace
of change and potential, I am
replanting my weeping seed, hopeful
of its need to silently sit slack-
jawed over my neighbor’s
fence. People always evoke the beginning
of something beautiful, but forget the ugly
inevitable. We will cross that hideous bridge
on the tree-lined river when we come to
it, but we will ignore all
pentacles being carved
into the trunks along the way. Can you
face the mirror when the Jokers
are telling you no, when your Queen is commanding
patience? After all, your paycheck
depends on it. Being young
opens the fingers and toes for earth, ground
yourself in now. When I am forty-
four, will winter still storm
the beaches of my home? From
the epicenter of the coffee table, floor-
boards will waver out
towards the four corners of our living
room. We have an old house, but an ancient
foundation, created long before
we entered here, surviving
our leaving. I will make
wands from the splinters in my
toes, present them to our Queen as a prize
from a faraway land, personally pried
from the spindly fingers
of a dark wizard, forged
in the fire of a teakwood candle.