The Dream Roulette Poem by MARINA GIPPS

Don’t let it float away. It comes only once every hundred years.
He walks this end of the world rue to sell the women silken tickets.
Sometimes he goes to the vacant lots where no shadows can spy on him,
Sitting down to rest from the claws of his insides.

Even at midnight, he’s in the redlight district, trying to console
All the lonely lipstick lovers weeping beside their broken phonographs,
Wondering which shade of rose they will wear tonight
With detached hands and choked pockets.

This number hasn’t appeared in two lunar eclipses. Don’t let it float away.
Your life-line paints a flood on the streets of Paris.
And so they re-tie their delicate bootlaces
For the long walk away

To another store where another dealer hangs talismans for the future
As if warm milk among old shelves of flammable moth-eaten parchment
And worn luck trinkets could appease their bleak search

For the man with the strange sunlight held in his hair,
Dusting his time away under primitive orphaned tea cups.
Murmuring to these somnambulist shoppers,
How may I help you?
As if the darkened sky would pause for an answer.