Ace Under the Table: A Poem

This morning, when I got to work, I was putting my stuff away and smelled this horrible rotten-banana smell.  I totally forgot about this banana I had thrown in my bag on Monday.  Of course, it got smooshed with my laptop and now my entire bag smells like bananas.  And, of course, it got all over the torn out sheets from the literary magazine I found last weekend.  So, that means my readers will be getting my old poems a little quicker than I planned… cause they smell like bananas.  So, this week’s poem is called An Ace Under the Table.

There is a back story to this one.  I was honored to play clarinet in the Springfield Youth Symphony my junior and senior year.  My junior year, we “relocated” to Kuss Auditorium in Springfield, Ohio.  To a high school student, this was the ‘big time’.  They even let us hang out in the “Green Room” before and after our performances.  Food, soda, candy galore!  Well, some of us began playing poker for M&Ms after our performances… one of the drummers and I worked out a system to cheat the younger members out of their candy.  If he or I would come across an Ace, he would slip it to me (or I’d drop it) into my lap and hide it in the slit of my skirt.  (It was a long black skirt with a mid-thigh slit.)  These crazy poker games is what prompted the following poem.

An Ace Under the Table

Have you ever played poker?

I have.

Did you ever cheat?

I did.

You may think I’m a bad person

that’s okay.

But, I walked away

with money that night

I was a winner

I held an ace in my lap.

Nobody knew.

Why should I care?

They cheated too.

I’m pretty sure

Five kings were dealt.

I guess it evened out, though,

For there were only three aces

and a fourth in my lap.