Lena Zycinsky

Spinning

At the tip of the world, there is a casino.

                               Win
                          a million-
                fold of what you have
                           to lose !

Exquisite illusions, voluntary taxes.

There is a price for everything,
you understand, including the priceless.

Once I bet a friendship for a cost-free
favor. How genuine was it
                                     if so fragile?
                                
                        Pride                   
                 at the price of                         
                 love;      revenge                    
                  at the price of
          collective wounds;    profit                   
                   at the price of
                      extinction.

You need to turn it up a notch, they say,
the Las Vegas caliber of wow.

Within palazzo walls: gondolas
in chlorinated canals, the painted sky, the
edge of the future.

Momentous smoke fumes, chic
martinis on the melting rocks.
                                
                            The reel
                   spinning, the head
                   spinning, the world
                   spinning—one digit away                                  
                                     from overheating.

Such a trill: everything is at stake.