KLONDIKE RECESS by Tom Lyford

KLONDIKE RECESS


The spring playground, muddy as a main street
from the forgotten Klondike Gold Rush, peopled
with forty little Dangerous Dan McGrews— 
hell-bent, big-time wannabe-gamblers all— 

cow-licked hustlers, rubes in little suspenders
beneath mothball-fresh spring jackets…
some pirouetting spastically on the heels of their
galoshes, gouging casino craters out of the wet,

spring gravel, and each with his pinchable poke of
precious nuggets: cats-eyes and clearies, aggies,
swirls, double-centers, steelies, and moonstones… 
most bragging manfully of past conquests and

bankrupted foes, speculating on jackpot
futures of marble millions— first a little game of
‘funsies’ to draw in the crowd, and then ‘keepsies’
to separate the men from the boys,

and then the boys from the marbles…
and there's a sucker born every minute…