The Lottery Ticket

A brown man in a brown jacket

Lounges on a cherry red pick up truck

In the lot

Brown hands scratch feverish over a gaudy yellow card

Cigarette in mouth

A silken twist of smoke floating

Into the clean blue sky

Brown eyes unblink 

Pale undernails work on the cheap cardstock

Silver hope and brown dread

?

Brown hands slow now. 

Brown eyes scan

"Maybe I misread-"

A grey sigh

Dirty white cigarette snuffs out

A last dying plume of smoke 

The brown man in his brown jacket looks out- out into the clear blue sky- down into his green yellow card, out from his flat brown eyes

Back into the cherry red truck

Ignition lights

Smoke flares and fades.