pain

Crosswords and Galaxies: Someone There to Love

Artwork by Merna Malik

I. My grandma stirs the pasta while I cut pictures of planets out of National Geographic Magazines. The table has blue stains from crossword pens. There are pillows quoting God’s love on the neutral beige couch and wobbly pictures of his grandchildren.

II. My grandpa brags about his children—all sons—and keeps a decorative pasta jar on the counter. I’m 11 and I don’t trust love. He does crosswords and I don’t get galaxies anymore. I get him things.

III. My grandma isn’t home. In the ambulance, her son is haunted by her missing words. She eats from a tube, pasta dinners forgotten, but galaxies come on the TV—her new love.

IV. What my grandma would really love is just to leave—that, or go home—but thank God for digital divinity. All those stars are her suns. Like space, you can stare into the past in this house. My grandpa finishes his crossword.

V. My grandpa had cross words even when she was someone there to love. There’s no place for pasta dinners now, just an inkling of how empty his house will be; he’ll have his sons, but never again his wife’s galactic love.

VI. My pot stirs up galaxies and I left home to slot this crossword. We need love. Hers belongs to her sons.

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