Sharon Weightman Hoffmann

Me, I like the Gypsy Lore
better than Rider-Waite, but
really if you find yourself
in an impoverished situation,
you can turn an ordinary pack of cards –
Gold Crown, Bee, or Bicycle –
into a wicked deck. I leave out
the Joker but he can be the Fool
if you want him to.
You just need to know
what corresponds with what
and have an appreciation
of the minor arcana.

People here and now in West Virginia
have the same questions that
troubled Eliot. Sometimes that man
with three staves will show his face
if you know how to see it.
You’ll still turn up
the Three of Hearts,
the Four of Clubs,
and always, now and forever,
the Ace of Spades.

You might think
that here in the mountains
nobody worries much about death
by water – more likely coal dust
coating your lungs or fentanyl
spiking your heart – but no,
you could be taken under
on the New River Gorge, sure enough,
or the Blackwater, even
the Cheat in flood-time, perhaps
not full fathom five
but drowned nonetheless.

Every spring, the old men say,
“We need the rain,” but sometimes
they are wrong. Rain is not
always innocent. The rivers wash
the land away, right down to the rocks
that rose and fell a billion years ago.

Let me lay down the cards.
No need to ask your question –
it doesn’t take a clairvoyant
to know the cards you want:
Renewal. Unexpected money.
Your own redemption arc.
Here’s what you’ll likely get:
Deceit. Betrayal. Death.

But there’s this:
Whatever the cards may hold for you,
water can’t bring it or wash it away.

Sharon Weightman Hoffmann is a writer based in Atlantic Beach, Florida. She is a former editor of Kalliope, a journal of women’s art. Publications include New York Quarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, Alice Walker: Critical Perspectives (Harvard University), Isle of Flowers (Anhinga Press), South Florida Poetry Journal, Letters, Poetica, Wild Roof, Sho, Qu and other magazines. Awards include fellowships from Atlantic Center for the Arts and Florida’s Division of Cultural Affairs, and two Pushcart nominations.