MR. DICEMAN

So small and impotent on the table,

blanched and blotted

on every side. I scoop them up

make a fist like a rattle: shake and roll.

Yahtzee! I wanna yell, but don’t.

Instead I read the random numbers

like runes, give up the hawing and the doubt,

the sleepless nights, the fear

and let the knucklebones divine what happens next

between odds and evens, yeses and nos.

My part’s merely the question:

Do I…

Join the circus?

Give the drifter a lift?

Learn to Lindy Hop? 

Water the orchid?

Climb Kilimanjaro?

With so little choice and empty of worry

my days are like free jazz

filled with wagers and crapshoots.

I am a gambler thru and thru -

now that there’s nothing to decide.

Is this what it means to die?