Pawn Promotion

'Pawn Promotion' (for F.S.)

This Cinderella chess move has fascinated me,
ever since I was a pint-sized mage

who lived to be learned
in arcane lore
in the incantations of regulations.

Pawn Promotion; it’s correctly called....
It’s when a pawn can be exchanged for a Queen.

It’s when a clerk; a moth-eaten moocher
(black to white/
white to black/

snubbed by bishops, the fast-tracking rooks)

is transformed from timorous time-serving toad
to majestic monarch in one sweet move.

I have lost and lost
for this metamorphosis
for a chance to reach for the Rules of Chess.
It’s hollowed the problem of expectations,
of having to live with another loss.

Not that, in practice, I have ever made this move

Not until now, that is, you see

for I’m boxing my chess books ( "...for the charity shop!")
and unpacking the parts that will make-up your crib.

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