Sylvia opposite Maxine, I, my partner—Anne.

Tonight we four women relax our roles as high

queens of the movement. In the bid, I short-suit

and come up bad. But Anne saves it, declares and leads

when the contract’s up, into the opening trick.

 

She and I both just finished up on a three month trick

at McLean. Tired of the craft, we learned to play a deck

of cards like men, I to follow her godly lead

in any circumstance. Once, an orderly caught Anne

and me bidding with the suicide ward. It was only that it suited

them so well, that the auction made them almost high,

 

we said. But no use. Privileges revoked. We high-

she told me. Now, she lays down a deuce trump suit

for her fifth straight win. She aims to take the deck,

I think. And she may. Times like these, I believe that Anne

really means to foil God. As if every lead

 

were the start of some life, perhaps, the same way the leading

words had been a thousand years before, in the high

noon of her work, when turning a life for Anne

was the same as perfecting a verse. And that was the only trick.

The day we left McLean, Anne told me that now I could deck

my life like a Christmas tree. I said, You can suit

 

She smiled and said I was learning. That night, a can of lead

paint in some acquaintance’s boat spilled onto the deck

while Anne and I were celebrating release. Drunk and high,

she asked me if I supposed it would do the trick

if she lapped it up like a dog. This was unchanged Anne, 

who I pretended not to remember the next day, the Anne

 

who still dreamed of death. Maxine pulls a king trump suit

from nowhere, and of course we lose the trick.

Once she and Sylvia have gotten hold of the lead,

Anne and I just lose it. She can’t pull out the high

card even once, and it looks like they might take the rest of the deck.

 

As if Anne was some Christ, passing on the lead

to her best-suited disciple before capture, she high-

lows me before the last trick, as if I had the power to save any deck.

 

—Annie Reece, Raleigh, NC