Her Crossword

By Gaurav Parab

My head hides buried deep in my hands

The paper besides me, silently demands

Attention between page nine and ten

God, her crossword calls me again

There is an A somewhere in four across

But Two down says she decided by a toss

Her light eyes are a penetrating clue

Why a Y scribbled across clue number two?

She prays for insight every now and then

And the S reads my mind wrong across clue ten

A child who does not want to be taken care of

A woman whose name in 1 across I love

What does her name anyways mean?

Must be a trap, so I rub the page clean

And I start with a new pencil and approach

The clue says she plays to be a coach

I know from a secret she wants to break free

Is that an E, no it must be a T

She wants to be solved, then she changes her mind

There is a yes, in everything she has declined

Whoever made her crossword was good

I don’t think even the good printer understood

Some puzzles drive simple men up the wall

As the pencil slips from their hand to fall

To the waiting ground down below

As I have to pack my things and go

I reach for another newspaper on the rack

But the inviting pen on the ground calls me back