MIND GAMES
Richard Fein
Chess is unforgiving,
no bluffing, no blundering.
Everything is so above board.
Scrabble's more human, even blunderers like me can score.
What's even sweeter, I can bluff, or seem to.
Ai, rad, col, jonquil, even qaid, are real,
but fruitquixcel and yesteryam?
I can awe anyone the first time
and some more than once.
But not her. She unfortunately
has seen them all before,
and some I haven't seen.
Under the light she's sucking on her finger,
and hasn't turned her blue eyes to me once.
Well, there's always the luck of the draw;
not likely, she's a hundred points ahead.
My move:
lust would block her bingo,
but she's holding the remaining s and t.
My mind has drawn the figurative blank.
I'm hemmed in; the three minute timer has almost run.
I'm a gamesman tired of games.
I could play to the open u,
use my seven to spell Iloveyou.
But she'd challenge,
using three words violates the rules.
