The Fine Art of Shuffling Cards

The fine art of shuffling cards is never easy, clumsily splitting the deck, roughly equal, roughly held in two hands, thumbs on top, third and fourth fingers supporting the bottoms, index fingers’ knuckles behind to arc, to bend, to support the cards, pinkies tucked out of the way, to watch, to observe, too small to help, too small to play. And one by one, roughly, as much as possible, the cards are released, alternately, one side, then the other, to fall, to flutter, to mesh together, interwoven, returning to a single deck, fifty-two reunited into one again, to divide and mesh again, interwoven, over and over, the cards randomly ordered, reordered, out of order, randomly placed and replaced, again and again … let the game begin with random cards dealt, face down, thrown down, player to player in turn, or slapped down one by one, a thumb dragging a card to brush against the one below, next in line, and pinched, snapping it to rest, piled up, readied, solitaire’s last card face up, turned up, a Heart, a Club, a Diamond, a Spade, an Ace or King or Jack or Queen, red and black, numbered cards randomly placed, randomly ordered, out of order, reordered, random … let the game begin, a game begun in random shuffling, random dealing, brushed and slapped down with a snap, turned and readied, face up, face down, like we who play this game, each day shuffled and dealt, to win or lose, random … let the game begin!