from my stationary position on
the exercycle at the glass wall of
the fitness studio I look down
on their silent tango as it drifts
repeatedly across the gym floor’s
gleaming tongue and groove two lovers
learning chess their moves are hesitant
but synchronous she crooks her knee and
offers up an ankle to be lifted
into the saddle then rocks back to allow
him to reflect her gambit they rook and pawn
and king and queen their way around
the empty room while up above
the poem sits engaged only
from the neck up going nowhere from
the hips down as I wonder how
to mitigate its seemingly inexorable
descent into sentimental pentameter
and some cliché of the narrator’s own
inadequacy versus the wordless charm
of dancers well fuck it some of us
are destined to sit on our arses and
rotate and if the lives we didn’t lead
remain more beautiful than those
we did then we will have fulfilled that
destiny impeccably which is
as near to checkmate as you’ll get