Pennyless Wager

One can wager fortunes on the turn of a card,
watch houses cross the table,
years disappear beneath the dealer's hand,
and ruin stare back from the felt.

One can lose it all
without so much as a tremor.

Until love takes a chair
and fills the air.

Iron hands erode, corrode,
once hard, now fold.

Because love is a strange kind of bet,
whose price can never be named
and debt never paid.

It asks you to wager your word
on something no promise can command:

that the flame will never flicker,
the heart once given forever stays,
the knot will never unravel,

until she, with shears,
cuts your bound years.