Tuesday, June 17, 2025

The Chess Players

Old men in checkered shirts
and khaki trousers with winding creases
sit on stone benches in the park.|
Arthritic fingers—the instruments

of mortal gods fighting anachronism—

swap knights, bishops, and pawns.

The October day is chilly and gray,

an opening move to clouded sunset

 

wider than eighty-year-old yawns.

Up and down the line of speculation

there are mates and checkmates,

coughing laughter beneath cataracts

 

among old friends and warriors

talking about queens, their wives

who fell to the board because of age

that even a Russian gambit couldn’t save.

 

It is hard to distinguish thumbs

from the knuckles and knots of bare trees

grabbing for the curtain of evening

that will sweep away kings and royal pleas.

 

Soon the day will fade to black,

and the sky, or time itself,

unwinding all of the game clocks,

will checkmate empty pants and shirts.


~William Hammett



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