June

We arranged the chess pieces
on a silver serving tray
as a mingled array of white and black
for corresponding squares - so that,
despite my efforts, the Queen could not attack.

After our match
you read the lines on my face,
and produced a pack of tarot cards
which you lined on the table for a new game.
You called it ‘patience’.
I spent two weeks playing solitaire.

“Let’s talk, write letters —
flap our tongues to clear foul air.
You see, I’ve started smoking again.
Study the thin wrists — you see, you see —
some yellow rash now itches there —
I had it not when you held my hand.”

But why respond to a street sweeper
as he sweeps away the last traces of her
throw-away feather pens
whilst whistling in the silence I willed.
“Darling, your cask of amontillado
was best served chilled.”

That was all,
I could bring myself to write on a postcard
before passing the note to the sweeper
and begging him to brush away
all the images the sentence involved.
He carried with his sweeping.
I returned to my city — deep in thought —
and continued, with a weight in my chest,
to stare at the stand-still arrangement of our game of chess.

“May, be the prelude to June.
She taught my thoughts
of joys and of sobs.
I have much to learn —
of the rules to patience —
and games of solitaire.”

By JPV

Copyright June 2006