Miriam Pederson: "Listening to Scrabble"

My in-laws play Scrabble
at night with their son
while I read in the bedroom,
the door always ajar
like my book
half opened to sounds
of the game.
Small clicks of wood,
now a sigh,
my husband hums
(it’s not his turn).
They ask each other,
“Is n-u-x a word?”
If I would watch
from the doorway,
two grey heads
and a peppered one,
bent low over troughs
of letters
would worry the tiles
eyes
dragging from letters
to board and back.
But I will not rise
from this nest of sound.
Here words weigh nothing
and all the players have won.

 
"Listening to Scrabble" by Miriam Pederson, from This Brief Light: Poems. © Finishing Line Press, 2003.

Art credit: Untitled image by Chalayn.