People Who Play Chess

I’ll admit I fear them. I mean
seriously, what the hell?
I’ve tried to play a few times.
It’s a lot to remember–the shapes,
the moves, how the pieces line up,
the rules about checking and mating.
Castling–Jesus Christ what is it?
It’s even worse with one of those
fancy chess sets where you can’t
properly tell the pieces from each other.
What I fear is the pointless planning
in the service of strategic duplicity.
I’m talking about trickery. Feints.
Deceit. I see people playing it in the park.
They seem normal but I find myself suspicious.
Do they also cheat their neighbors?
Do they pay their taxes to the day’s king?
I simply cannot grasp the planning
it takes to maneuver to victory.
What is it that I fear? About this game?
About its players? Is it the battlefield,
abstracted? No, it’s not that. Would
that all wars were fought this way.
Is it some deficiency in myself?
This is closer, the Knight’s lance
now poking under the Bishop’s frock.
I consider myself smart, even clever,
but this level of forward-thinking,
this encompassing of possible moves,
their counters, their statistical contingencies…
I don’t want to plan this way about anything,
let alone a game–let alone winning.
So I watch them concentrating, the
old man with grey hair and the young
earnest pupil he is corrupting, despoiling,
robbing of his blissful innocence. I watch
the pigeons at their feet, scrambling
for dropped crumbs. I look up to see
the financial buildings, their rook-like
battlements. I fear this child will enter
them one day, and rob old widows
of their prayer beads.
Why be jealous of that?