I pass them daily

these old men

playing checkers

in the local park

spending the time

they have remaining

outside lonely rooms

here where they are

somehow still within

the world that would

rather forget them all.

Sometimes there is

a space that is soon

filled up by another

entrant into the realm

of the very old.

And so they play

day after day

the game in which

their every move

could be their last.

                                                   ~Ian Fletcher

                                                        Cardiff, South Wales, UK