PLAYING CHECKERS WITH OLD MEN
(for Nuart May)

Each move is a lesson
of days and years accumulated
like old photos and memorabilia carefully
stuffed beneath socks and underwear
in drawers of the past.
The multisquared board on which
we try to out maneuver, think one another
is the air we suck and expectorate, the
blood that courses through our veins,
the dust upon which the Creator breathed.
Between occasional yawns and momentary nods,
a move produces the surrender of one thing
in order that two may be taken or a retreat
now in preparation for assault later or
to be outnumbered is not necessarily
the same as defeat.
-King me, he shouts above a whisper.
An hour has passed away like the movement of
a lifetime and my haphazard approach has
left my men scattered, sparse and desperate
with stones, slingshots and curses as
if on the battlefield of Armageddon.
My adversary, with wisdom and understanding
i gleaming in his eyes, reaches out to me,
I his bony fingers wrapping around my hand
confirming, I have a lot to learn
in the living to come.

      -James E Cherry
      Jackson, TN

Poet and fiction writer James Cherry has had work appear in 
Crab Orchard Review, African American Review, Obsidian II, 
Drumvoices Revue, Dialogue, Mount Voices, and others.
Delight

Your uncle calls
to wish you happy birthday.
You want to hug him
for remembering,
this man you worshipped
with good grades
and pecked cheeks,
who smiled at you
like a condescending duke.

Your brother, he clasped
to his heart: a prince
in the clan of men--
though you were the one
who remembered his birthdays,
anniversaries, Christmas:
the dutiful niece he ignored
like a fairy tale
stepdaughter.

Call it telepathy,
or your brother reminding him,
or the wish
to make contact again
with the little girl
whose eyes danced delight
whenever he sauntered
into a room.

His voice gilds the air now,
caresses you,
makes you forget
how often he forgot.

     -Robert Cooperman
      Denver, Co. 

Multi-published Robert Cooperman is the winner of the 
Colorado Book Award, 2000, for his In the Colorado 
Gold Fever Mountains (Western Reflections).

Friends

They sat quietly at the end of the day,
     as darkness hunkered up next to them,
          their conjunction well known
               as simple and of great comfort.

No more solitary musings for either;
     instead, a collective of
          sharing and swapping 
               with no boundaries.

A delightful, joined existence,
     words floating fore and aft,
          or reveling in
               the blissful quiet.