
“Heads of Chess” by Shellton Tremble
I learned the game
from a Cuban boy
near the copper-green
cast of Liberty’s robe
where his family
of chemists
fled ass over teakettle
north to escape
from Fidel’s
fatal handcuffs
the father now swept
iron shavings
from factory floors
so the son could
become engineer
and my tutor
their story was newer
but nonetheless
similar hearkening
to my own parents
who fled in an
earlier time
not from jailers but
abject privation
the boy taught me well
and to this very day
more than fifty years
hence when I
contemplate chessmen
I ask myself
what would
Antonio do
(originally posted November 2013)