Learning Chest (winning poker)

[smackythefrog]

When I was a child
I was called a prodigy only once
by the husband
of my Aunt Marsha
my Mom's best friend from her Stanford days

I remember I was playing his daughter
who though only two or three years older than me
I believe was my first mutual 'crush'
and she looked very big and smelled very big

at that young age, whatever it was
I called the game 'chest' (my father,
I believe, was the first to correct me
and he corrected me with a smile so gentle
my silly little eyes could only see the
correction
as they had been taught in school:
not an 'A', but a smirk.
and much as I trusted my dad
I remembebr it clearly
only because it hurt.

That was when I made my first cypher:

'Chest'

(it means 'Chess,' dummy)

from that age on the power of that cypher grew
and so did its meaning
and like a virus

that attacks T-Cells
it invaded

my mind

and I was positively sick
by puberty
and positively exhausted by adulthood
and positively beffudled, but not lost

because

I knew with absolutely pious faith
that I loved art
and art was good
though until today I never understood.
one learns to play chess
by learning to first open it up
with one's own
key.