A Different Game

A Different Game

It's Scrabble our late Sunday evening game
but soon it's clear that something is amiss.
She's focused but her playing's not the same.
A four for SAD? She's never played like this.
Unconsciously, she's choosing words not score
we realise, and every tile she lays
in PAIN and SUFFER is one dry tear more.
Another wasted S in LOSS. She plays
out, and in one sense never playing better,
her grief. I test my theory with RAVE
and, sure enough, she uses her blank letter
as a G and turns it into GRAVE
with downwards GONE.
And then the still unshed.
She's lost the game
and weeps a dry-eyed DEAD.

Dorothy Pope