Dead Man's Hand (88aa) Poem by Hell 'Farya

John.

We call him John Joe.
He wasn't from around here.
Strapped in a black boot,
loose green pants at his waist,
a roughed-up tuxedo hugging his torso.
On his head was his prized hat.
He wore an enthusiastic smile.
Joe always do.

He loved to play, to gamble
more so than one who has never lost.
But everyone has a day of reckoning.

In a saloon by the west bank,
on the far corner by the left,
beside where some outlaws chew tobacco slow,
there sat him, John Joe.
Waiting up a challenge, maybe.
Or just there chilling, like he always did.
None could tell.
None would challenge him.

But a boy.

He was also a Joe, new to town.
Boots still dusty from the trail,
eyes still soft with believing in luck.
So boy Joe sat opposite to Joe.
The cards were dealt.
And they began.

Raise and call. Bluff and bluff.
Deal after deal.
Amusing, the crowd thought.

But there was a catch:
for a legend to rise, another must cease.
The wager was costly.
Not silver. Not gold.
A name. A run of grace.

Boy Joe would call, and Joe would raise.
And so it went, on and on again,
until the air grew thick as whiskey.

When the water bell chimed,
that iron clang through the dust-choked street,
John Joe was left with four cards.
He looked around the smoke-stung room.
Then into boy Joe's eyes.

'A double eight and Aces, '
John Joe said.

A long silence.
Then the boy laid down his hand.

John Joe's chair pulled back.
His hat came off, slow and deliberate,
like a man stepping out of his own story.
He walked past the bar, past the broken spittoon,
through the swinging doors and into the sun.
Down the street he walked.
And collapsed.

No one touched his body.
No one claimed the pot.
The boy just sat there,
shuffling the deck,
not smiling yet.

And somewhere outside town,
a coyote called once,
as if it knew the name
of the man who never lost,
until he did.

Somewhere far west beyond the waters,
a John Mepe drew his first breath.
And boy Joe did feel it.