Narrative Poem: The Wrong Wife.

 

 

"You're doing it all wrong"

my wife said.

"So you say" I replied shortly.

"You'll break the whole thing"

she insisted.

"I know what I'm doing"

I said patiently. "Just

keep your shirt on and

I'll show you."

Just then the hinge snapped in

two.

"That's it" she said bitterly.

"We might as well break out a bottle

of wine and forget about it."

"Wait, what?" I said, bewildered.

My wife has never taken a drink in her life.

"You don't drink."

"Says who?" she said. Then she looked 

closely at me.

And I put my glasses on to look more

closely at her.

"You're not Manny" she said to me.

"And you're not Suzy" I said to her.

"How did you get in here, anyway?"

she asked me.

"This is my house" I said."Isn't it?"

I looked around the living room.

But it wasn't my house.

"Your house?" I asked nervously.

She looked uneasy.

"It's not my house. I don't know

where we are."

"How did we get here? What's 

the last thing you remember?" I 

asked her urgently.

"I was hoeing turnips" she said.

"I was peeling shrimp" I said. 

"In the backyard with the kids."

"You have kids?" she asked me.

"No, I guess I don't" I said.

"But it seemed like the right thing

to say."

A man came into the living room.

He had wild black hair and icy blue

eyes.

"Who the hell are you two?" he said furiously.

"Get out of my house before 

I call the cops!"

We both ran out the front door. 

She went left and I went right.

I stumbled over the gravel and weeds.

Because there was no sidewalk.

That's the trouble with the 

suburbs -- 

they don't put in sidewalks.