Member Poem

You liked crosswords.
You did them
quite literally
until the day you died.

Turning black and white squares
into grey scribbles.
Ink smudged on your left hand
a tattoo courtesy of the New York Times.

What’s a six-letter word for ‘sign of growth’?
you asked us during rounds.
We shrugged.

The next day–
It’s cancer
you told us.
Six letters, growth.
You were right.
Twice.

We never touched.
You never held my hand
or brushed the hair from my face
But I saw the way you held yourself.

Aged fingertips dancing
across delicately folded newspaper.
A woman wizened by almost a century of life
yet humble enough to ask for crossword help.

And one evening
your sterile hospital room bathed in the honey of a Texas sunset
I watched your jaundiced skin glow gold
as I paled at the word terminal.

It was quick.
Which is good.
Because I don’t think you ever really lost the part of you
that was so
undeniably
you.

When it was happening
I wished I could tell you that I like crosswords, too.
And that another six-letter word for sign of growth
is change.