They’re useless knobby clubs;
knuckles swim under blue skin,
unanchored and drifting.

He knocks the knight into city tundra;
his arrhythm, marching flat-footed
in Vietnam—he is a statistic, sinking gratefully in peat.

“Who is your queen?”
His hand is undecided, pointing into the haze,
and then at my expectant face.

“She’s as cold as marble and not nearly so soft.”
He sees me, steady on my hands, feet planted on the sky.
“You are the king?”
“The king of my world, and I can’t be dethroned.”