A spun ruby clitters to a stop atop the marble table.
Love’s most ruthless gambler shows no sign of streaking out.
The prize is perched at the bar, mouthing curses at her twin,
reflected smiling in the mirror behind the spectral bottles.
In her head a cello moans from melodrama to luxurious sorrow.
Each spoken word marks another murdered star, far up
and beyond the casino moon, gowned with cloud,
pale body as smooth as marble, as perfect as her remorse.
The bartender nods the rain’s remarked-upon absence,
sponges in the meaningless trials and tragedies
of every beautiful mannequin here whored and glorious before him.
He tests the tip of his paring knife, incising and piercing,
pinning pearl onions and peanuts and clotted cherries,
does many things at once while appearing to do next to nothing,
casual to the beck and call of these droning spectaculars.
It is possible he no longer resents the foul beauty of the women,
the semaphore darting of their languid eyes
betraying a fear that cancels every shrill of confident worldliness,
numbering them on a syndrome-chart he does not figure in.
The revolver click of the roulette tables, the pittypat thump
of dice on baize, the pop and slur of ice cubes
when the booze is drained, the refill not yet shouted, grunted for.