Laying the Cards

Laying the Cards

On moonless nights they come to ask
of things to come and things that passed
of what their lives might have contained
had they not found an early grave.

In liquid pools of midnight dark
they come to beg and make their mark
and plead for her to set the cards -
reflections of their withered hearts.

She answers them in dark of night,
at evening’s fall and dawn’s first light.
She pays the cards against the strife
that comes upon the end of life.