How clever we both are…

I’d write you a crossword
but the answer to every clue

would be a joke neither of us
understand. You’d laugh

charitably, stretching your neck
upward like you do, but it would be

awkward, and you know
how much I hate awkward.

Maybe that’s the joke. Maybe.
I’d write clues with first letters

spelling awkward, awkward 
examples dangling from each

uncomfortable letter — or
I’d just do endless anagrams,

draw ark ward award rad raw — 
but of course it would be

nonsense without this poem,
which wouldn’t have existed

if I’d written you a crossword,
a joke, just another love note.