Playing Canasta
Lisa St. John
We call it Ca-Nasty
No fair! You’re a rotten—
cringing cackles,
wild cards.
A washerwoman could
play with those cards!
That’s what Ma used to say
(when she was losing anyway).
Hey! No hitting!
We need some chocolate.
I need to pee. Don’t peek at my hand.
It is all transcribed,
in penciled columns,
the history of wins and losses.
In memoried hearts,
the where and when.
Do we have time for a Canasty?
Four sisters look at the clock.
I’m five weeks late.
Four sisters go to the calendar.
It’s knowing
that you are safe
enough to laugh,
and to lose.
Lisa St. John is a writer living in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York. She is the author of Ponderings (Finishing Line Press) and Swallowing Stones (Kelsay Books). A Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee for her poem “War is a Human Child,” she won first place in Anthology’s 2024 Poetry Award for “Through the Membrane.”Lisa has published her poetry in several journals, including The Ekphrastic Review, Light, Entropy Magazine, The Poetry Distillery, Poets Reading the News, New Verse News, and Chronogram Magazine. The poem “There Must Be a Science to This” won The Poet’s Billow’s Bermuda Triangle Contest, and “Mowing the Lawn” was shortlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize and later published in Fish Anthology 2016. Lisa’s ekphrastic poetry has been selected for both the Ask For Arts 2020 Poetic License Exhibition and the Mid-Hudson Arts Exhibit, Poets Respond to Art. Lisa believes that art is hope. She can be found online at lisachristinastjohn.com
OMG...I miss playing conasta with the group of friends I used to have...Thinking on it now, I miss those guys... you brought back happy memories. Wish I had friends now.