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      May 29, 2019Bingo CallerLiz Robbins

      We’re all electronic now.
      Gone, the wire globe and
      crank, the worn-out goddess
      to turn it. Some call such
      games gambling, and it is
      addictive, hope. Players
      with their numbers
      in rows, as if order
      were the only good and
      goodness makes luck.
      Some thumb a silver coin
      or cross their fingers,
      eyes closed, whispering.
      They lose much more
      than they win. But it’s
      the randomness of chance
      that keeps them returning—
      how unknown fate may turn
      and treat their numbers,
      ones they’ve known since
      they were children.
      That thrill, so close to
      fear, like news of a death.
      And the ending, familiar—
      rarely what they’d hoped for
      or pictured, but with the grim
      satisfaction of closure.

      from #63 - Spring 2019

      Liz Robbins

      “The greatness of persona poems lies in their double nature: the poet uses an alternate voice to—through metaphor—communicate her own discovered truths. The poet is speaking and not-speaking, like a ventriloquist. The satisfactions are plenty—the research to accumulate details about the real or imagined persona, the striving to weave an unknown world to a known. In these poems, I looked for interesting and unusual occupations that seemed to hold possibilities for metaphor.”

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