As the toxic is part of a deep trance,
 as the scorpion mind recoils on itself,
 as contemplation must sooner or later
 gape before you the same widening gulf;
 that to you is terror, naked and cosmic,
 that to you is the unseizeable idea of God.
 No one can force it, foretell the wheel’s whim,
 the risk of the course, collapse of the cards,
 the horrible thumping of dice in the leather,
 the doom intrinsic in this havoc of bone.
 All must hazard all on the race of the clock,
 behold the pale rider, swinging his scythe,
 in that twilight that comes to each one alone
 when the one sure thing is to lose all you love.

* A painting (The Race Track) by Albert Ryder, 1847-1917. The horse is shown running alone clockwise. While staying at Saratoga, Ryder heard of a racetrack waiter who had lost everything on a horse race and subsequently committed suicide.

RICHARD O’CONNELL lives in Hillsboro Beach, Florida. Collections of his poetry include RetroWorlds, Simulations, Voyages, and The Bright Tower, all published by the University of Salzburg Press (now Poetry Salzburg). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Measure, The Atlantic Monthly, National Review, Margie, The Texas Review, Acumen, The Formalist, Light, etc. His most recent collections are Waiting for the Terrorists and Dawn Crossing.