Gambler

Nickel gleam
his single eye
opens.  How rightly

he flicks a switch.
He doesn't try.
Animal timing:

a pure sweep,
smooth, of his rough
arm.  A tightness

in the groin.
Several coins
ago he could have severed

ties and walked off,
unashamed.  But the same
bells ring him sleepless

those nights
he's not there.
Why do they run away,

all those days,
April through May?
Hours spent under lights blinking

through smoke,
the haze, the somnambulent line
for the buffet.