How to Lose a Game of Chess

Set the board where the finish has thinned
to a pale oval under the plates. Bring down the box.
The lid sticks, then gives.

Take white. Keep the one hand for it, every year.
The knight you place first lost most of an ear
to a fall you were not in the room to catch.
It leans on its felt where the base split.

Slide the wood in front of the king out two squares.
Wait.
He touches a piece and draws his hand back.
The nail he has bitten to the pink
hovers, then comes down again. Let that happen.

Open the lane on the side he favors.
If he does not see it, leave it open another turn.
Do not straighten the rank he has bent.

He crosses into your half without stopping short now.
When his fingers shut on one of yours, keep the palm
flat to the wood, the knuckle gone too wide this winter
for the band that used to turn there.

Move the king only where there is nowhere left.
Lift it, hold it too long,
set it down a square short of the safe one,
take it up as if to move it back, and leave it.

A split runs the fourth rank where the table leaves part.
A thread off your cuff snags in it and lifts.
Do not press it back.

When his last piece walks the long file, watch the squares.
Tip the king with two fingers. The lead in its base
knocks the board once and rolls to its side.

Hold it after. Let the black warm slow against the callus
while he rakes the ranks in, the backs of his fingers
crossing yours in the sweep.

One bishop does not go back in the box.
It stands the week on the sill, on a slip the school sent home,
its scored face to the glass, holding the paper down
under the small wind off the door.

He has the lines half-set already, asking for the next.
You stand the king up on its square.
It shifts once under the thumb, and you leave the hand there.