Dominion

When I was child, I played
with chesspieces but out of order,

not heeding rules or design.
I skirted around the bishop, laid 

the rounded head of a pawn
in the bowl at the castle's top.

The horses were only horses'
heads, so I could not bridle

them or take them for a canter. 
Slender king, dangerous queen, 

walking the edges of a checkered 
field beyond which forests

breathed, and the patient 
tongues of the sea waited.