Raising the Ante

 “sometimes the subject is not what you think”

—Rodney Jones, “The Ante”

What's the motive of my line—

Is it a thing to do with time?

Perhaps some sort of sexual tic

("Subject wants to dip his wick")?

I scarcely give a tinker's dam.

I scribble chiefly since I can.

Pain, those urges, even rhyming?

Sure, you know, it’s wasted whining!

The subject's really what you feel,

The night, a trip that rocks, unreal:

In growing up, you should conceal

Raising the ante on your life.

Take dear Calliope for wife;

She'll cut you in since it's her deal.

Epigraph: Rodney Jones, Imaginary Logic (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), 17.

Latin subjectus . . . literally, to throw under, from sub- + jacere to throw —Merriam Webster, s.v.

Halloween 2025