The Third Chair

The checkers are old, and the board is cracked.
But the game remains for any with the patience to play,
to feint and move and build stacks and empires
one move at a time.

I don’t play well. I never have.
I am too simple, or too blind, or too something
to manage games. I gave it up long ago.
But games remain

and there are many who love to play.
I am content to watch and wonder
from the third chair, the one to the side,
where the boring, simple people sit.

About this poem

The older I get, the less good at games I become.

Less about checkers than life.

Tom