Cards

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When someone asked me to describe

my grandfather’s house, I did so

by what I knew of a playing card

that had his house on it. I had to be

vague, and of course I could not describe

anything about the inside of the house, 

only the house itself, and the beautiful

green lawn which stretched out to the sea. 

I am glad that many years ago before

someone who died before I was born 

decided to make playing cards with 

photographs of my grandfather’s house

on them, but sometimes I wonder about

the lives they led before I met them—

if once they smelled of an after shave that

is no longer made, mahogany that has

since been swept out to sea, a linseed oil

that I do not know by name, or even a cigar

that once rested near a pillow for years next

to a drawer I never knew filled with things

I could never know in a room I never saw

in a house I never visited that I am certain

was mine. Sometimes I wonder about

what disappeared from my life before 

I had eyes.

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Ricky Garni lives in suburban North Carolina and works as a photographer and writer. His work has been published most recently in the Blake-Jones Review, and CAN YOU HAVE OUR BALL BACK? A GLORIOUS GALLOP V. AN ADAGIO OF INDIFFERENCE—his latest and lengthiest collection—was released in December, 2020.

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