Check, Mate*
We don’t own our children, we rent them. –after Kahil Gibran
No mere
groping
play)mate’s
chess/t,
groping for
answers.
No mere
wor(l)d play.
Pregnant within
this aborted poem
is (to be or not to be)
the question.
As we wrestle
with this
conundrum,
what choice
(to have or have not)
is t(here?
Early endgame,
Fool’s Mate.
Ripped, torn,
never born.
Contra love,
against conception.
More is less,
less is more,
or less
convenient?
No)w love lost.
Bishop rants,
“You lose
the right
to choose,”
Slanted, straight,
can’t move
off his col(la/o)r.
“Be fruitful and multiply.”
Beginning and end?
“No room in the inn”
for Malthus.
Can’t stay in
y(our ivory tower,
rooked at the end
of the universe.
Sooner or later
dead.
Renting earth.
Rats gnaw rats
in crowded cages,
playing out
this long, crooked
k(night
fork
of earth’s demise.
Love to eat, hate to kill.
Where’s the fatted calf?
Slim waist land.
T.ough S.hit Elliott!
Mere pawns,
stumble forward,
ready for sacrifice.
Or queen status,
to mate the king,
like praying mantis.
Hail, Mary, mother of God
knows what,
lend us your ear
to conceive
a better decision.
Not so black and white,
this chessboard of life.
Ripped, torn,
mother/earth
to mourn.
I see you (check)
early of late.
You used to be (check)
behind before,
But now
you’re first
at last (mate)
Check,
Check,
Check,
Check, mate,
before you put it in, Finnegan,
wake up.
No shroud
of m(i/y)s(t)ery.
Contraception,
not contra life.
A mater(n/i)al thing.
Who’s
gonna pay
the rent
in the fabric
of our
l(i/o)ving choices?
Checkmate.
*previously published in Voices: The Art and Science of Psychotherapy, 2011
A Condom Fit for a King