Imagine, lover, a room with two men in it.
Laughing. Imagine a brown horse-blanket rug
On a wooden tile floor with two men on it.
Very little else — a cable spool with two mugs,
Empty, on it — that’s all that you must imagine.
You may, by now, remember the two men.
One was black-bearded and thick; the other grinned
Under brown eyes in a thick face.
Now, as then,
We stop laughing long enough to look down
At the crossword puzzle between us. Our words
Remain where we’ve placed them on the page. We’ve found
“Ransom” for the first word down, “surety” for the third.
Empty squares still fill the page. Laughing, we frown,
Nearly touching, looking in words across for the words down.
David Milley
