Queen’s Gambit
By Scott Thomas Outlar

 

What’re seconds in life
to pick up your coat
dust your courage
shine the sleeves

 

or twenty toward a regiment
or thirty for the screws

What does one minute matter
during the moment of laughter

 

Forty days and bleed again

 

What’s five years of the groundhog
haunting the burrows
chasing the hare
choked by the tail

 

or six to leave permanent scars
or seven stitches through the night

 

What does one hour’s profit measure
when the till is hollowed out

 

Eighty gods dream of jinn

 

nines in the gallows
nines where the genes swirl
nines beyond the vapor trail

 

nine promises intersect at zero-point

 

Roundtrip

Your genesis was pink, soon purple
origin everlasting

 

Be kind to the kin
of your heart

 

These genes form goosebumps on your flesh
until ash claims the bones

 

but I’ll still be here
picking through the dust
looking for the lust that promised love

 

And in the winter
when all seems barren
we can return, naked and empty
to the innocence where we belong

 

Scott Thomas Outlar is originally from Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. He now lives and writes in Frederick, Maryland. His work has been nominated multiple times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He guest-edited the Hope Anthology of Poetry from CultureCult Press as well as the 2019-2023 Western Voices editions of Setu Mag. He is the author of seven books, including Songs of a Dissident (2015), Abstract Visions of Light (2018), Of Sand and Sugar (2019), and Evermore (2021 - written with co-author Mihaela Melnic). Selections of his poetry have been translated and published in 14 languages. He has been a weekly contributor at Dissident Voice for the past eight and a half years.