When I got married
she gave me her ring.

 

It always brought me luck, she said,
now it is yours.
You’ll pass it on to your granddaughter—
it needs to skip a generation.
You need luck when you are young.

 

It was her engagement ring,
1936 written next to a name I never met.
He died before the wedding, she said,
tuberculosis.
My mother says, we don’t know
if he really died.

 

When I got divorced
she didn’t claim the ring back
nor when she realized
grandchildren would never be.

 

I wear it every day.
I feel unfinished without it.

 

Did her fiancé really die?

Was I really married?

Who will be the granddaughter?
Who am I without her ring?

 

After she died I went to the casino
to play blackjack on her birthday. 

I lost. My luck was somewhere else.

 

When my own time has come,
just like her, I’ll be happy to have lived.
That’s good luck.
Then, the ring will find another finger.