| better words . . . . here there and everywhere |
I hadn't played chess since I was three. I resisted, remembering the brain-aches and confusion. But you had set it all up, and looked at me. So I played chess with you, no longer having to lean over the board to move my pieces, but sitting comfortably across from you and still, like always, over-guarding my Queen. I won three games out of six, wondering if you had let me win those times but realizing that no one 'lets' anyone win at chess, not even my brother, the one who had taught me. Those two mornings in the loft, crushed against you on the flat, small mattress, waking up, and looking over the rising and falling of your breath to the lake that had disappeared in all that fog and mist. I could sit to next to you forever while you sleep. Everything that I used to enjoy privately and secretly I've made you a part of. Soon, we'll be driving through those mountains that I had kept to myself for so long. I can't imagine ever wanting to be alone with them again, or ever wanting to be without you. |
better places . . . . over under and through |