Playing solitaire provides a soothing sense
that your actions count: that turning a new leaf
gets noticed and obtains fair recompense
for efforts made, and that when play comes to grief
it’s in ways a fair reshuffle can undo.
Each time you try again you’re not ignored;
your conversing with the cards shrinks down the blue
and empty space where you’re eternally bored
into images of action you can spread
around your mind as feedback amplified,
by wanting some, into old warmth that’s bled
away so long you think perhaps you’ve died.
Each time play ends and flowing hopes congeal
you foresee a better next hand, and you deal.