duhpursuit

If we advance,
innocent, guiltless,
the informed
undertaking of rook
and queen,
the porcelain, poised
to face another
solid, brick, mortar, stone–
designs on the other,
transposed.

If we trade
red, for impulse
square, for sphere
black, for cream
and gesture, this way
the wicked
pass, or pour.

If the common squares,
the echoes, the daily
percolations, are left
to boil, to spill
unkempt, unmeasured,
the closed file
may open onto new
patterns, the laying down
of arms, the winged
flight of waxen players,
descending,
lunar revelations,
embracing the dark.

Time is all
it takes
to slay the maidens,
youth undo, or seal
the curious
in their vault,
self-made;
to lose, yourself, despite
the careful maneuver,
to the grand master–
lose in her
many-chambered thing,
the mind.

It’s only If,
the looming elsewhere,
the duplicitous
unknown, that calls out
undisclosed, and makes us
all a little lost, a little crazy–
cautious, although

It’s only If,
the hidden passages,
that lead us
down, or out.