This morning as low clouds skidded across the spires
of the city, I found, next to a splintered bench
an ivory chess piece–as it happened, a knight
in the wind, avoiding pigeons, crows, and ravens.
I wondered where other chess pieces went, perhaps
stolen, blown away, or playing their own chess game
without interference of people pushing them
around red and black squares without care or regard.
I return to this park each day in hopes that chess
pieces return, a white horse changing from somewhere
to advance towards the board with distinctive motions,
stepping forward, sideways, advancing once again.
Did this mythical horse recognize that’s the move
I wanted him to make? I stare at the sunny,
crisscrossed lines of my palm, realizing that this horse
ivory and absent, checkmated me again.