Dream Game

The dream game is offered:
chess, or some variant,
played with the tiny severed heads
of friends, strangers, and celebrities.

What if I refuse,
I ask the darkness that gave me this.
Suppose I go back to sleep
and shove this nightmare aside?

Do you want to be a knight
or a bishop, the darkness responds.
I’ve got many players lined up for this one.
Play or I’ll put your head in the game.

Play or be played — this old line again.  Still, I refuse.
At once I’m asleep and bleeding between the fingers
of some stranger who looks, oddly enough,
completely at peace.  Of course, in his game, I’m a pawn.