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Friday, August 02, 2013

LOVING SCRABBLE

by Tricia Knoll


"Hasbro pulls its support of Scrabble's organizing tournament organization -- the National Scrabble Association". --NY Times, July 14, 2013


Words for love: Japanese 2, Sanskrit 96, Ancient Persian 80, Greek 3, English 1


She, sidewinding from the center star: TWOS.

he building from sibilance, up to down: ONES

she slides, pushing tiles over and under ONES, LONESOME

grabbing g, he forges EGO

she built LOVE from loneliness

and he VAGUE from love

she bridges loneliness to vague: NAG

he pounced on VAGUE to USURP

and she that P for PAPA

he pushed TIT up to TWOS

triumph in hard combinations
bedding down together as if
WOO and WED
DARLING and ADORE
VEIL and LACE
TUX and TINGLE and COMMIT
outshone
YES down from YOKE
BUZZ and BLESS and BED,
JOY, JISM, SORROW, and SPARK
EX (triple word score) and SUE and LEFT
FIRE from IRE, ACE hung from AWE
STALE and MATE

she’s left at end with an unplaceable U
he with I


Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet who loves word games, plays several on her I-Phone and has known some scarey competitive women Scrabble players.