And the Old Men Play Dominoes

Ill And The Old Men Play Dominoes Kevin Grumbach Sitting under the trees on park benches their hands finger the inverted brail of the ivory tablets. They lay down their bony hopes end to end, stealing now and then from a neighbor's unminded hand a vibrant eyeful of ever-optimistic polka dots. Even so the chances fail us. To the boneyard we go. To the Boneyard! Shuffle and pick, shovel and pick, picking luckless life again and again, walled eventually off behind pallisades of unplayable ideas. The pieces come unstuck, hopes collapse and in the clattering tumble of year upon year comes the thought of letting hold of life. 112 But watch as their arthritic joints gather the ruins of petrified dreams. They deal again. (University of California, San Francisco) ...