Name: The Daily Crossword
Duration: P00H01M43S
Description: For Mum.

The Daily Crossword

from Reading The Light by Ross Thompson

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about

For Mum.

lyrics

The letters are no longer placed inside
the boxes. They were once bang on target:
neat bullet holes all dead straight in a line;
each answer correct and proudly square set.

Her hand was once firm but her words now squirm.
A tremor has become her signature.
The crossword has changed. The spaces that yearn
to be filled now yield to a silent cure.

Somehow we muddle through. I read the clues,
and do my best job of trying to jog
her faltering memory. We both choose
to ignore the fact that she has been robbed

of her keenest skill. Between rounds of pills
and the next day’s meal order she replies –
oh, the surprise, when she knows d’Urberville,
Analogue or Shinto, as if her eyes

still hold the light like a lamp glimpsed through mist.
More often than not, the right words are lost,
her eyes start to drift, and my kindest gift
is to complete the rows down and across

and say, “That’s right,” as if this can make up
for the countless books bought when I was ill,
the countless answers taught when I got stuck,
and all the other gaps she helped to fill.