Rich Youmans

Cross Words

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Across

1. Everything. That’s what you say when I ask what’s wrong. The threadbare sofa. The bathroom leak the landlord never fixes. The El when it rumbles outside our kitchen window, our stacked dishes chattering like teeth. You complain about your job, how the stink of tar and sweat never leaves. About my clothes—Do you have anything besides sweatshirts?—and how many times I serve tuna fish. I step through your silences as if walking on glass.

2. The color of twilight. I still remember that evening we met. I was standing with my girlfriends outside Mimi’s Cantina, our cigarettes pulsing in the thin night air. First the footsteps over the parking lot’s gravel, and then you: your hair the color of a raven’s wing, your stubble glistening in the moonlight. Your lips poised as if ready to whistle a note I longed to hear.

3. The ________‘s the limit. Once, our love seemed limitless. You held me throughout the night, your hand curled softly around my breast, your soft words curling into my ear like a prayer: mi amor. Do you remember when we’d rattle off in our Nova to the riverside park, its manicured lawns and its dogwoods in bloom, cruciform petals flying like secrets that can’t be held. . . I wore the cotton floral dress that flowed like the river, you put on your Sunday slacks. We’d lie on our backs and raise our hands, palms out, as if nothing were out of reach.

4. Not on top. Now, when dusk gathers in the hair of the niñas laughing on the sidewalk below, I hear that old Nova from blocks away. The popping of its barely leashed muffler like a gatling gun. Even when you have to park up the street, I hear the whinge of the car door, can feel it in my stomach. By your second beer, you’ve told me about your foreman and his bulldog breath, how you can never spread tar fast enough. About the drivers that look at you as if you’re not there. About the sun, always the sun. When I lay out our bowls—beans and rice tonight, not tuna fish, see?—you stare as if I’m not there.

5. Empty. When you’ve finished your meal, you stare at the bowl as if it’s not there.

6. You stand up on them. This afternoon, I climbed to the roof of our building, looked out onto the tops of other buildings like ours, just smaller: the same patched tar, air conditioning units like cages, rusted metal doors painted with curses. Past them, in the distance, the gleaming buildings of downtown, all glass and dreams. Between them I see glimpses of the river, its water flashing tiny crosses of sun. I can almost hear its soft voice that sounds like secrets, or promises; like the niñas’ laughter that returns when the El’s clatter fades. . .

Down

1. “Splendor in the ________.” I want to know again that feeling. This Sunday, when you wake, I will be wearing my old cotton floral dress. A little tighter, but see, it still fits. You will stare and, for the first time in a long time, see I am there.

2. They give you an edge when paring back. We won’t take much. We will drive, the pop-pop at our heels but never catching us, our eyes wide until we arrive at where the green lawns watch the light slowly rising in the sky. I will kick off my sandals, you will unleash your workboots, feel the dew as you curl your toes.

3. A joyous sound. Mi amor, you will whisper. Mi amor.

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About the Author

Rich Youmans lives on Cape Cod with his wife, Alice. His books include Shadow Lines (Katsura Press, 2000), a collection of linked haibun with Margaret Chula, and Head-On (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2018).