A/N: Words in this poem: card, gaudy, oil, gloves


the gatekeeper's boat
4. roulette

They didn't bet their lives
or their fate; they played
card games in casino parlours
and smoked pot
and stripped off gaudy gloves
till their emotions
were the only things they wore
and they'd twisted
like oil immersions in a water base.

If they'd once looked well-groomed,
it was just a costume, just a mask
and her job was to strip them down
and watch the smoke twist them
till even the purest souls
turned murky brown.