“What Gamblers Know” by George Franklin

Gamblers are more honest than the rest of us.

They know we can only take what luck gives—

That when it’s good, it’s not because some virtue

Rests on our shoulders like a soldier’s epaulets, and

That when it’s not, there’s no point to second-guess or

Blame ourselves, sit morose in cafés

Or on padded stools in diners, watching

In the steam swirling above the cup the shapes of

Lives we could have had and didn’t. Gamblers know

Blaming doesn’t help. It doesn’t make the silver

Ball fall on red or black when the occasion warrants.

It doesn’t make the card we need slide obligingly

Into our hands or a stack of chips grow like cornstalks

Out of dry soil. Sometimes, bad luck lasts

For years. Then, one day there’s a perfect stillness.

The light reflects from puddles in the street,

But it doesn’t blind us or make us wince. Then, a breeze

Just strong enough so we notice how it moves over

The Earth like dice on green felt, like a smile

On the face of a player who bet on zero or double zero

And somehow won, how it moves like luck itself,

A wave that picks us up and eventually lets us drop.

A gambler would know you didn’t enter my life

Because of anything I said or did. A gambler

Would say it was luck, good luck, a perfect spin

Of the wheel, the card I would never have

Thought possible. He’d say, “Don’t ask questions.

Don’t imagine you did something to deserve this

Or worry that you didn’t.” He’d say it was luck,

That’s all, and he’d be right.

George Franklin’s most recent poetry collections are Remote Cities (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions) and a collection in collaboration with Colombian poet Ximena Gómez, Conversaciones sobre agua/Conversations About Water (Katakana Editores). He practices law in Miami, teaches poetry workshops in Florida prisons, and co-translated, along with the author, Ximena Gómez’s Último día/Last Day. In 2023, he was the first prize winner of the W.B. Yeats Poetry Prize. His website: https://gsfranklin.com/