Poetry at the Post: Wealth Is Power But Knowledge Is Better

After  “The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs” by Alice-Catherine Jennings 

Look not upon the wine when it is red. There’s the trick of the eye, the trompe l’oeil. We think it’s one way but is it another? My eyes focus on the red of the courtesan’s hat,  then circle to the sheen of the jeweled collar, the gold threads of the young man’s cloth. How  light filters through the feathers of his headdress! Tilted. Ah! There’s the cheat dressed in yellow, the color of deceit, eyes level with the maidservant’s breasts, bared at the bodice of her crimson dress. The ruby-colored wine just poured. The glass suspended among the hands of the connivers as the cheat slips the secret card from his belt. We are complicit. We see what the young man cannot. The trick, the one played every day—the Ace of Clubs.

#NaPoWriMo Day 23: Pick a card.