Felicity Teague

Chess with Jimmy

I hadn’t thought about you for a while;

today I feel a need to play again –

a need for black and white, for rank and file,

a win at Level 1, an easy gain.

Your eyes, still brown, still match your tidy hair.

“I’m Jimmy,” you begin, just as before,

the robot script. I’m not required to care.

You start predictably: P --> K4.

I focus on the pieces; other forms

back off, towards the outskirts of my mind,

yet always lingering and threatening storms

within the world in which I am confined.

You, Jim, are quick; you give the game away

and then display, “Neat job!” My small success,

a moment of distraction for today;

a chink of hope. Perhaps the pain is less.

Felicity Teague lives in Pittville, UK. She has had inflammatory arthritis since she was 12 yet is able to work from home as a copyeditor, mainly in health and social care. Her poetry has been published in The HyperTexts, Snakeskin, The Ekphrastic Review, The Dirigible Balloon, Pulsebeat, and elsewhere; her second poetry collection is forthcoming (2025). Other interests include art, birdwatching, film, music, photography, and guinea pigs.