Chess Pieces

Summertime beckoned
Memorial day chastened
Shadows on the walls
An east wind rode the squall
Chess pieces fall.

A phone call

Lives splittered
Time blurred
A train's horn
Announces a siren's mourn
A child, a brother, a fiance, a son, a cousin

pass

Childhood innocence shattered like broken glass
Blood splattered by urban railroad tracks
Darkness, abyss envelopes like black lilacs
Outstretched hands reach for the void
As one weeps over a Polaroid

Emptiness's ache

Soul's earthquake
Shame blushes
Hidden crushes
Muted tears
Twenty-three years
Chess pieces fall
Within life's mosaic.

By Shannon McKemie, M.A.