by Sara Junkins '23 on February 10, 2023
Portfolio Staff

---

Featured Slider

---

All the crafted cards

Fly by in a shuffle

of swirling symmetry,

Hypnotizing as they masquerade

In the guise of sameness.

But on one of the unseen sides

Looms the sinister shadow

of the Queen of Spades,

The mysterious mistress

Dictating Fortune herself,

Changing the fate of the game

At the appointed time.

Undesirable yet lusted

After, she lures in sailors as a siren

In a sea of mirages

Of promises of riches and forever favor,

And silently stalks her prey as a mountain lion.

She captures all the kings, stakes them with daggers.

She imprisons the queens and locks them away,

Former friends becoming forever enemies.

She steals all the hearts and pins them to her wall

As trophies, like butterflies unable to fly away,

And bursts them with darts as though they were popped balloons

Containing all hopes and dreams

Of winning the game.

She cloaks herself with night

As she rides her bicycle

As though it were a mighty steed

Triumphantly tromping through darkness.

She shoots the moon with bow and arrow

Until its light fades.

Mistress of Silence,

Mistress of Death,

The silent cupid who strikes unaware…

Beware the Queen of Spades,

The Queen of Broken Hearts.