My mother's playing cards with my aunt, <br />Spite and Malice, the family pastime, the game <br />my grandmother taught all her daughters. <br /> <br />Midsummer: too hot to go out. <br />Today, my aunt's ahead; she's getting the good cards. <br />My mother's dragging, having trouble with her concentration. <br />She can't get used to her own bed this summer. <br />She had no trouble last summer, <br />getting used to the floor. She learned to sleep there <br />to be near my father. <br />He was dying; he got a special bed. <br /> <br />My aunt doesn't give an inch, doesn't make <br />allowance for my mother's weariness. <br />It's how they were raised: you show respect by fighting. <br />To let up insults the opponent. <br /> <br />Each player has one pile to the left, five cards in the hand. <br />It's good to stay inside on days like this, <br />to stay where it's cool. <br />And this is better than other games, better than solitaire. <br /> <br />My grandmother thought ahead; she prepared her daughters. <br />They have cards; they have each other. <br />They don't need any more companionship. <br /> <br />All afternoon the game goes on but the sun doesn't move. <br />It just keeps beating down, turning the grass yellow. <br />That's how it must seem to my mother. <br />And then, suddenly, something is over. <br /> <br />My aunt's been at it longer; maybe that's why she's playing better. <br />Her cards evaporate: that's what you want, that's the object: in the end, <br />the one who has nothing wins.<br /><br />Louise Gluck<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/widows/
