The Séance

Lucky Charlie spreads his hands, the others grip them,
tonight, round a metal table, seeking, amongst others,
his bookie who passed six months back, damp cracks
the wallpaper, outside a dog is snuffling fresh meat.
Charlie and me, like kin, as a boy I'd helped his dad
shift cans while Charlie was bottling sparrows. Art,
he'd termed it, and all that was missing in ragged
eyes. On the table, wooden tiles painted with letters
and a decanter of brilliant gold scotch, extorted,
he'd spent his whole life believing something was
owed him. The faces he'd clubbed, spaded over,
or upturned like astonished fish blurring in water.
Last to be named, someone remarks the room is
surely colder as I nudge the tiles, call T I M E.