Chess

I don’t know
If I can

Tell you
The truth

We shift
Cold pieces

Towards
Each other

I need more
Allowance

For overnights
College stuff

With your bud’s
Firstborn

You slide
A story

Him caught
Side-glancing

At a bar’s
Urinal

Checkered
Silence

Pawned
Details

Castled
Crowns

Over
And over

I’m not over
Your need

For a different
Son

Chalk Art

Knowing this
Will be washed away

He persists in retracing
His memory:

Moon’s full watch
Unlidded by clouds

Bay’s huge waves’
Brash lunge

Seafoam tonguing
Crushing the stones.

His lover’s body
Conjured to fade

With the wooden
Passing of soles

So he scrapes chalk
Onto boardwalk.

Sweat soaks tangles
Of his hair

Dissolves dust lines
Cleanses wrinkled fingertips

While
I Loving him

Write this.

In the Garden
Bronze of Clare of Assisi by Trung Pham, S.J.

Clare’s right fingers
Graze the cloth
Touching her breasts,
The opposite ones
Petals that unravel
A hesitant palm.
Her left arm
Holds her waist
Preventing a fall
From forward desire.
Eyes closed, she
Savors bright air:
Growth of rosemary
In exchange intimate
With the world.