The Crossword Setter

"One thing that is in my power:
I can see further into things than most,
even than your father. Even the father
idealised solid as memory in you. I knew

that - just an example. I've lived
the long life, by now, you know,
and am well pleased, at last, with
£25 for two sets of clues.

I knew - another example - for years
of the men my wife met
quietly, delicately, in dark-red hotel rooms
unsettling the very streets outside, so

they made me naseous; a sensation
later familiar almost to a comfort - the fear
of a soldier. This thing I knew well - the only
I wished I didn't - and all this not unlike

the lumpen, uncomfortable feeling of
that false, bronze perfection of your father, that character
these days behind you always. He - Him - so easily
answering the crossword clues of your youth;

questions in youth set by anything:
steam train-stone-lover-stray dog-white
china dishes - it was really a hopscotch of questions,
and wishes. Some hoped to be answered, some painful

when made simple by an adult answer, like
the one I've been avoiding, sickened, for years, or
like the crossword clues I store in overflowing racks,
that lord I know are only really facts
applied to other facts, and nothing more."