DIANNE HALES, LA BELLA LINGUA — In... workshops..., I paddled through Italian's treacherous tenses…. I struggled to corral its impish pronouns, which flit from the front to the back of sentences, disappear entirely, or latch on to verbs like fleas to a cat's ear.
| A. | "Sh" or "wr," in phonetics | DIGRAPH |
| B. | Venus, to the Babylonians | ISHTAR |
| C. | Voice recital performance (2 wds.) | ARTSONG |
| D. | Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party, per Ambrose Bierce | NEPOTISM |
| E. | "Jefferson in Paris" star (2 wds.) | NICKNOLTE |
| F. | ___ de l'escalier (retort thought of too late) | ESPRIT |
| G. | Minim on a staff, two crotchets in length (2 wds.) | HALFNOTE |
| H. | Attorney general after Reno | ASHCROFT |
| I. | Top-grossing film of 1970, written by a Yale classics professor (2 wds.) | LOVESTORY |
| J. | Famous photo taken by an Apollo astronaut | EARTHRISE |
| K. | Landing area for long jumpers (2 wds.) | SANDPIT |
| L. | Network targeting women | LIFETIME |
| M. | If all the pieces fall into place (2 wds.) | ATBEST |
| N. | Leonardo da Vinci or Ludwig van Beethoven, e.g. | BACHELOR |
| O. | Subdivisions of a geologic period | EPOCHS |
| P. | Anticipate; try to find (2 wds.) | LOOKFOR |
| Q. | Tool used to make small incisions | LANCET |
| R. | Snow boots for walking, to the French (hyph.) | APRESSKI |
| S. | El Dorado or Shangri-La, e.g. (2 wds.) | LOSTWORLD |
| T. | Shimmer with different colors | IRIDESCE |
| U. | Brenda Starr or Lois Lane sort | NEWSHOUND |
| V. | Entertainer in a hanamachi | GEISHA |
| W. | Libel or slander, by definition | UNTRUTH |
| X. | When Juliet drinks the potion (2 wds.) | ACTFOUR |