Most Alike Atmosphere of life We breathe it In the same capacity We are most alike Conceived with a deck We carry cards of choice And we play, ill-equipped To win any hand Fumbling in our diaper crawl dance Others play by proxy We learn We watch We estimate our chances and take a step Captive to the game The deck is loaded with aces And jokers And in our gamble We lose more than we win We breathe in We are most alike Seeing what was lost In my unaware choice I stopped playing And watched Visions of long lost loves And tired retirement Heaped heavy on the ante Chipped energy of life Spent on useless time And cloned response Now Coveting my deck Choice and desire Close to my chest I play Carefully And I watch you play We breathe in We are most alike J. Vance