27 Down

…

13 across was easy enough, that guy
who played Kojak, and 5 down didn’t
give me any trouble, either, because
I just watched the movie Contact. But
then 27 down was the name of that
song, sitting there all innocent with a
blank in it, like maybe I’ve never heard
it, like maybe you didn’t wear the blue
Henley that night and maybe I didn’t
somehow smile at you just right and
maybe we didn’t draw together like two
magnets straight out of G’s Physics
class. And so then maybe you didn’t
reach up and brush my hair back be
-hind my ear, and maybe I didn’t sigh
and the song didn’t say the words my
heart was screaming again and again
in my crazy rattled chest even though
I tried to tell it to shut the hell up and
behave. Maybe I didn’t save the next
dance and the next and the next for you,
and then the last one, too, even though
by then you’d moved on to Darcy Rollins
who, let’s face it, knew how to push
things up where they belong. And maybe
I didn’t long or pine or cry or pen ridic
-ulous lyrics in margins for weeks to
come, or wonder if I’d just been dumb
to think you’d ever want to dance with
me in the first place. And maybe I can
just erase 27 down, and good old sweet
16, too, get on with the rest of this dumb
puzzle. Or maybe I’ll take up Sudoku.

..
Written for Poetic Asides, Day 23.

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