June 21, 2022

For Julia

on finding “crocodile” in my crossword puzzle

there's a crocodile relaxing in my crossword

I’m puzzled, I’m not certain what I should do

it straddles sixty-two across to forty-nine down

and it just sits there, blocking a host of answers

I know how it got there but I can't move it along

this crocodile has teeth, you know,

many teeth (nine of them from least to most)

each placed all in its tidy, unmovable place

and not one of them owns an answer