White Pigeon Ticket

I

White Pigeon Ticket came across
the ocean,
the centuries,
brought by memories
and stories
of Chinese laborers in the early American West.

The game was no longer White Pigeon Ticket,
but Keno.

II

I rarely played Keno.
The game was too slow
too tediously noisy.

I played Cleopatra 20-line.
There were bonuses
three golden pyramids promising
fifteen free spins
all wins tripled.
There was jackpot music
no coins jangled in
or out.

I slipped a bill into a slot.
The bet was silent.
When the time came to leave
(the player never wants to leave)
I pressed Cash Out
The screen read: Are you sure you want to stop?

There was, say, $42.60 left
of a $600. jackpot
and the $300. I had slid
one twenty at a time
into the slot.
I was sure.
Not that I wanted to stop
but that
I had to.
I pressed Cash Out again.
The paper voucher emerged
without a sound.

III

I walked past a bank of keno machines
and an ATM. A woman hunched in close to the ATM.
(She was not me
and she was.)
She slid a credit card
into the machine and stepped back.

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS
another card
INSUFFICIENT FUNDS
Four more cards.
INSUFFICIENT FUNDS
INSUFFICIENT FUNDS
INSUFFICIENT FUNDS
INSUFFICIENT FUNDS

IV

Seven months since my last bet.
My brain is sandpapered.
I walk into the Mojave
I walk alongside a pale rising moon.
Mountains below the moon
are deep violet
and the rich brown of
elk-hide.

I think of my old home
and how once in a time of deep grief,
I stepped out my back door
and watched the elk stag
watch me
through dawn mist.

V

I walk north toward my new home
past the abandoned house;
the dry channels and ponds and fountains
someone once made
not quite believing
they were in the desert.

I hear a whisper,
not words
something more delicate.

I turn and go back.
When I step onto the basalt path 
that leads to the house,
white pigeons
fly up from the eaves
hover
and
one by one
return.


Copyright Mary Sojourner 2010