Playing my last card

The deck was stacked

I have played fast and fearless

Nonetheless

The game is coming to an end

Holding tightly to one last card

Not a winning card

Perhaps only an opening

A new game would be nice

This game has taken a toll

Should the card be played

Or held instead as hope?

Hope without action ...

A fool’s platitude

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Playing my last card considers the exhausted threshold between endurance and change — confronting the limits of passive hope and recognising that renewal may require the courage to act, even without certainty of victory.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.