two.

another treasure from ted kooser's book of valentine poems:


Chocolate Checkers

In a tiny green park, chopped out
of a corner of Commerce, I saw
two men in rags with their backpacks
lying beside them. Red nose to red nose
and old boots toe to toe, they were
playing a game of chocolate checkers,
using candy for pieces, and eating
the pieces they'd won from each other
and laughing like crazy.
It was Commerce
who'd given this park to the city,
and Commerce looked on--the bank
and the telephone company
standing behind mirrored windows,
disapproving--not of chocolate checkers,
per se, but of that kind of people,
laughing and playing with candy
on an imported Italian marble table
with neatly set black-and-white tiles.