April 17

Checkerboard
Day 17 Challenge:  Based La silla, Daghda tuatha dé dannaan (https://www.artnet.com/artists/leonora-carrington/la-silla-daghda-tuatha-d%C3%A9-dannaan-e47DSRjFit72emezhKLNzw2), by Leonora Carrington and

Alchemy, or the Useless Science (https://www.wikiart.org/en/remedios-varo), by Varo

Both featured a checkerboard floor, one with a woman melting into it, the other with an empty, well-lit chair.

Some people had trouble reading it, so here's a transcription:

Verse 1: White squares

Do you remember

when we passed notes

folded in ever more intricate

and convoluted origami,

the words twisted backward

and running in an endless loop

out from the center,

coded for that extra security?

We held court at the round table

telling fortunes and

guarding our only safe place,

that bubble of light in the darkness.

We laughed, and it echoes up through the years,

like screams in the walls of haunted house,

like echoes of the crowd bouncing off cinderblock walls.

And now the chair across from me is empty.

Verse 2: Black, on diagonal

We played games, like

spoons and bullshit

with four decks of cards 

and absolute honesty.

After all, who could argue with

seven king, two aces,

twelve eights, a two

and sixteen jacks?

No one could accuse us of a lie

and if it meant nothing,

if the games had no rules, 

then so be it, the bell would ring anyway.

Who needs rules among friends,

and who would we appeal to if we cared?

The game would end.

The game always ends.