Judas Hand
( a 55)
March howls its broken promise
to erase the extra decades in your bones;
you're spent in bed still feeling
the burn that made the ash.
The ghostwind cuts
your lips with a dead man's kiss.
You forget hummingbirds are coming
like children cured by the sea
and wish you'd never bet
on that judas hand.
March 2025
posted for the Word Garden Word List
Notes: a poker hand of black aces and eights with a card in the hole is called a dead man's hand, after the hand held by Wild Bill Hickok when he was shot in the back of the head in Deadwood, Dakota Territory 1876. It's also known as the judas hand. Alternatively, a judas hand can be three tens, representing the thirty pieces of silver Judas Iscariot received for betraying Jesus Christ.
Images: Landscape in Stormy Weather 1885 ©Vincent Van Gogh Public Domain
Display in Deadwood, South Dakota with the dead man's hand (here given as A♠ A♣ 8♠ 8♣ 9♦) Vidor at English Wikipedia.Public Domain
