Rosalie Calabrese
Odd Man Out
Death, I’ve argued all along,
is preordained, in the cards—
each occurrence indelibly inscribed
in the book of life.
Now as your story
is about to be cut short,
I pray the clock will stop
but, like the cherries
in the slot machine
that time you said
the odds were in our favor,
it relentlessly moves ahead.
Rosalie Calabrese is the author of Remembering Chris (Poets Wear Prada, 2015). Her work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Poetry New Zealand, Poetica, Jewish Currents, Mom Egg Review, and The New York Times, among other publications. Her poems have also been set to music by composers for the concert hall and the musical theater stage. A native New Yorker, Rosalie works as a management consultant in the arts.
This poem is not previously published.