Across and Down

A stranger left the Sunday Times behind

on the plastic chair beside the ferns.

I trace the frantic workings of a mind

that hit the wall where logic twists and turns.

They tried to fit five letters into four,

a smudge of ink where thinking went to die.

I see the way they couldn't take it anymore

and left the empty squares to tell the lie.

The word for 'Pity' was the one they missed,

though 'Mercy' is scratched out a dozen times.

It sits there like a tight and angry fist

between the local news and petty crimes.