EN PASSANT


EN PASSANT


We play chess
on the frayed
lime green quilt in
my East LA hotel room

my set
her move

The Carpenters and
The Captain and Tenille and
others whose names escape me
crooning wrinkled covers
on the wrinkled old radio

I trace a lazy finger
down the hollow between
her soft plum breasts
tugging at the top of her
white camisole until I can
watch the beat of her heart

Her money runs
out in three days
mine runs out
in two

The card shark's
- the one who sleeps
all day in her room
lets her buy him
breakfast and gin
swiped her new
Swiss army knife
because a lady shouldn't
carry things like that -
ran out last week

while her hands drop to
the bed to do something
discreet that I can't see
or even feel

She listens to my tall tales
of haunted oceans and fat
sheriffs and sultry ghosts
pumping me for details
I haven't thought up yet

She sings of running out on
a husband and three young thugs
somewhere back in venerable
greybearded old Connecticut
dropping her house keys
through a dirty sewer grate

She purrs harmonies of
cool night air into my ear
while my eyes slip and
slide all over the bed
trying to figure out
what the hell happened
to my Queen's Pawn

She speaks with a lisp
on side of her mouth
having deadened nerves
the other side smiling
easy as suburban apple pie

But then she's easy
I'm easy
this game is getting real easy
as we slowly get stoned in
The Land of a Thousand Smokes

I wash my sea green eyes
into the leaves of
her nut brown eyes
returning her verses
with lyrics and winks
as I sneak her Rook
two paces back

She doesn't seem too sharp
unconcerned that a woman
with a messed up face
will soon have to walk
broke and alone on LA's
endless hungry streets

figures one of the playboys
in this ten dollar a night
last chance inn
has to flash her a roll
still believes a man is
a woman's chess King
useless but necessary
to the game

She slips off
her denim hotpants after
cornering my last Knight
with a wine cork
tossing them over
a captured Bishop
who immediately converts
to the King's church

Still she's sharp enough
to toss off the gossips
the preening in-laws
even the private detective
tip-toe out of town with
her family's life savings
all three hundred and
seventeen dollars

smiling like
I imagine her smiling
the moment she first
realized that her home
was only a red square
no more than three moves
from the edge of the world

Anyway
my strategy is no different
She left her kids
I'm the kid who left
runaway pieces chasing
one another across the board
until we either lose our heads
or capture the holy crown

A Pawn rolls against
my thigh and sighs
while the other pieces
scurry beneath the sheets
forgetting who captured
sacrificed outmaneuvered whom
everyone now playing on
the same side of the board

Knight takes Queen
En Passant
Check
Mate
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