It started as a bet
The story of a life
Part engineered to fit the scenery
He'd loved a racist once
She kept a tidy house
It must have paid much better in the seventies
Back then you could be gay
But in a manly way
He held no truck with water pistols
Alternative lifestyles
Were for the middle class
At worst they could write poems about their misadventures
No real man could envy them that

Softly - suddenly

She'd started as an eight
Then sunk into a ten
He put it down to carbon dating
Their daughter had his laugh
But not his smoker's cough
It must have been the lack of tar in heroin
She took herself to Wales
Excelled in telesales
Cold-calling deep into the evening
Her second husband came
And left before the spring
It must have been the season for unhappy drunks
Her father had a similar trigger
Softly - suddenly

I gratefully accept this black eye
No one knows as well as me
The value of consequences
Do to others as you would have
Done to you especially if in doing so
You find new takers