I never heard her say the ‘f’ word.
She had a few 4-letter words in her repertoire,
but she preferred extended descriptions:
‘stupid bugger’, ‘sodding hell’
and sometimes the short sharp shock:
‘Sod’ and ‘bum’ among her favourites.
Struggling to do the ordinary
through a mire of medication,
she never used the ‘f’ word.
Or the other four-letter word
we read in her furrowed face,
though never in her eyes;
waging war with daily agonies
and her constant
unspoken
pain.