Card Shark

Double Scorpio,

Aquarius rising:

luminous teeth

arranged in

perfect rows,

while his brain

did card tricks

in the back room

with all the

doors locked.

He promised,

“I’m going

to let you

adopt me

for the

next week.”

I didn’t

explain that

I already had

two children,

a mortgage,

and a husband

two thousand

miles away.

Later, in

the shadows,

under the

frayed cover

of my

sleeping bag,

I no longer

remembered

where I hid

the road map

with its precise

lines, leading

me home,

but he found the

ace of hearts:

first in midair,

then between

my legs,

with no trouble

at all.

Leah Mueller is an indie writer and spoken word performer from Bisbee, Arizona. Her most recent books, "Misguided Behavior, Tales of Poor Life Choices" (Czykmate Press), "Death and Heartbreak" (Weasel Press), and "Cocktails at Denny's" (Alien Buddha) were released in 2019. Leah’s work appears in Midway Journal, Citron Review, The Spectacle, Miracle Monocle, Outlook Springs, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, and elsewhere. Her essay "Firebrand, The Radical Life and Times of Annie Besant" appears in the book, "Fierce, Essays By and About Dauntless Women" which placed first in the non-fiction division of the 2019 Publisher's Weekly Booklife contest.

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