Tricia Thibodeaux

Mah Jong

Winter is an old man in a tub:
my grandfather in a snapshot: sitting straightly
tall, legs crossed Indian-style
in a slatted wash barrel. 

This old man on a tile in a stack
sits also folded, but here looks up
toward the heavens
like a monk protests. 

Winter is blue in my game.
And the old man is bony
as a one-man band instrument,
stringed and tubbed. 

In a second photo my grandfather stands,
grinning broadly at the joke and
holding the tub which circles him at waist-level.
Winter shows no legs in Mah Jong.

(photo by Kyle Tschepikow)