Puzzles by Kimberly Coverly

Puzzles by Kimberly Coverly

I grew up bent over a puzzle board,

Placing the tiny pieces in piles,

By color, shape, throwing out the misfits.

The cardboard fragments look so out of place,

It is my job to put them together,

Make a piece of artwork out of a mess.

I loved the word ‘jigsaw’ that summer,

Running to the back yard, I couldn’t wait,

I wanted the first shot at doing it,

Trying hard not to get the pieces wet

From the watermelon juice on my hands,

Or the sweat dripping from my furrowed brow.

It was my grandmother who taught me how,

She told me to always look for the edges

Their straight backs were the easiest to find,

Practically screaming for my attention,

I always did the puzzles with great ease,

‘Prodigy’ I would always hear them say.

I am told, but do not believe at all,

That my bedroom was a mess that summer.

This was impossible, I did puzzles,

It was a task based on organization,

How could my room possibly be a mess?

Everything in life tends towards randomness.

But not my beloved pastime; jigsaws,

I forced their randomness into beauty,

Their mess signified a challenge left undone.

Unpredictability was their vice,

I am their creator and it brings joy

To me and to them concurrently.  

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Prodigy by Charles Simic

I grew up bent over   

a chessboard.

I loved the word endgame.

All my cousins looked worried.

It was a small house

near a Roman graveyard.   

Planes and tanks

shook its windowpanes.

A retired professor of astronomy   

taught me how to play.

That must have been in 1944.

In the set we were using,

the paint had almost chipped off   

the black pieces.

The white King was missing   

and had to be substituted for.

I’m told but do not believe   

that that summer I witnessed   

men hung from telephone poles.

I remember my mother   

blindfolding me a lot.

She had a way of tucking my head   

suddenly under her overcoat.

In chess, too, the professor told me,   

the masters play blindfolded,   

the great ones on several boards   

at the same time.