come see the world of metaphors

come find your shiny place –

within the tangles of my mind

with all its interlace

 

for what are we but mostly pawns

engaged in mostly losing –

to live confined on squares and boards

that aren’t of our

own choosing

we read the things
they bid us read,
and on command
we shout, or bleed

and can’t imagine,
not a whit,
the safe back row
on which
they sit

never trade

uncertainties

about people you know

for purported certainties

about people who

you do not know