House of Cards
I miss you winter evenings
With your dim lights.
The shut lips of my mother
And our held breaths
As we sat at the dining room table.
Her long, thin fingers
Stacking the cards,
Then waiting for them to fall.
The sounds of boots in the street
Making us still for a moment.
There’s no more to tell.
The door is locked,
And in one red-tinted window,
A single tree in the yard,
leafless and misshapen.
by Charles Simic
from Virginia Quarterly Review