I should have picked it up ages ago

 

            They were just a little too solicitous,

            My friends, and when they looked at me

            They looked far off

            As through a fine mist

            Rising from a slightly colder breath

 

            Their voices too

            In parting were a

            Little bit too much

 

            They knew

 

            It was like a shave that seemed okay

            Until the mirror told you that the blade was dull –

 

            Or chess

 

            Which was initially a way for us

            To keep from talking but remain engaged

 

            It may have started over something

            Too big to broach

            Or perhaps too small to see

 

            The habit bred, in any case,

            And whether opening with

            Black or white

            We nearly always drew

 

            My lover had a way of capturing a piece

            By swinging the bottom of her ivory

            Against the head of mine to knock it down

 

            Except when she was closing in to mate

 

            Then she would deftly

            Lift, let’s say, my rook, into her palm

            While substituting a victorious knight

            In one one-handed swoop

            Gentle and neat

 

            It was a sign as sure as sunsets

            That my cause was lost

            Despite whatever tactical advantages

            I may have felt I had

 

            I was fascinated by her hands

            The narrow slender fingers with their tapered ends

            Agile and supple as a musician’s and

            Capable of stroking my cheek into a

            Frenzy of warmth or

            Reminding with a certain steel

            That hers could just as easily become

            A sheet of ice

            I wondered what she made of mine

            And whether I betrayed her to herself

            As she did me

            By fingerings

 

            Eventually it got so that the game

            Consumed the chief part of our time

 

            When the silences before her moves grew long

            I often measured them against the

            Rhythm of my pulse or breath

            Depending on the whim

            And sometimes to amuse myself

            I tried to keep track simultaneously

            And calculated formulae

            To link the independent beats:

            They never worked

 

            If I remember rightly

            I embraced the new

            After we decided on our separate ways

            So it was hard

            To fathom anything amiss

            Or dwell on devolution at the time

 

            But that’s just when, in retrospect,

            My friends began to finger me

 

            These days I keep imagining a piano

            Whose keys are still intact though

            Underneath the hood the

            Soundboard’s cracked beyond repair and

            There are few strings strung

 

            It may be touch and go

            But I’m convinced a tune

            Can still be wrung