ALPHETA'S LITERARY AGORA

My Mother's Chess
by David Solway

From The Atlantic Monthly, January 1981, Vol. 247, No. 1, page 48,
http://www3.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/antholog/solway/mother.htm

She plays a curious game;
unexpectedly will strike
from any quarter in a storm
of near-perpetual check and yet at the end expose
a too-long forgotten king
or for no good reason lose
her queen, quite as confusing

as confused. Does her better
nature gain the upper hand,
the inveterate sweetness there,
incapacity to reprimand?

which makes for dubious chess
but an indulgent parent.
I might have wished it otherwise:
better chess; less lenient.

© Copyright 1981 by David Solway. All rights reserved.