You could stay home and count your blessings.
But your hibiscus blooms toward Black Bear Creek 
and the box turtles taking their chances
across asphalt stretching North to Red Rock’s 
plastic palm trees flashing yellow-green
around the Otoe-Missouria bend. 
Sunday afternoons every chair in Paradise
is filled. Ashes hang from mouths like incense
drifting over sacred slots, moist palms, 
players clutching their talismans—
one good spin—while Red Ruby twirls
her hair, woo woo when her ruby lips click
thrice in place, black stiletto heels, ruby shoes. 
Bells to the right and bells to the left ring
their clappers off like code reds in a ward.
Save this one. Save this one. Security guard
could be Chief Little Pipe’s great great grandson
dressed in his tall frame, ponytail and glasses,
watching the hopefuls at Black Jack. 
Maybe his ancestors gambled their lives
on frost-bitten hunts around the Great Lakes.
He uses their skills to observe modern trails
of tears to the ATMs. Medicine women in purple, 
gold-leaf,  palm-print shirts rush to rescue 
all the stuck cash tickets from over-worn machines. 
Some folks think it’s crazy, “throwing money 
down the drain” while they bet on safer things: 
garden tomatoes, a mortgage, kids’ college, 
Disneyland. You want a piece of that too. 
Like the bonus pool of golden dew 
from the Amazing Blazing Bees honey pot. 
There’s the night you and Mr. Oil went 
head to head in Texas Hold ’Em after you busted 
the Mayor of Yale, sheriff of Pawnee, Mr. Goober 
Drilling, and a rancher who looked like Pistol Pete. 
Oil got married to his pocket queens, re-raised 
your raise, and put your chips all in. Your ace hit
the river and caught the straight. Everyone clapped 
at the cashier’s cage as they counted your thousand
bucks. Hailed you as Bright Star, Promise
who out-played the good ol’ boys.

You don’t dwell on the bad nights, your best
calculated risk sinking slowly down the long drive
home alone in the gloaming. What are the odds
of this cow loping along the edge of the road? 
Of all the fencing, on all the acres, she found 
the rare hole, like three eagles lined up on Wild 
Frontier. Whether dumb to have wandered, 
or greedy, or wanting a change of scene, 
cooler water from an imagined stream, 
she faltered one step, then shamelessly pressed 
her big regal ignorant head through free rein, 
planted her hoof down, hefted herself through.

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