Poem of the Week 09

An Ideal Husband

I wonder what on earth she could have meant,
The day she left, by calling me a slob?
I’m always there on time to pay the rent,
Although, it’s true, with money from her job.

When she gets home, a glass of wine is waiting
Before she has to go and make our dinner;
Then, while she does the chopping and the grating,
I watch TV; does that make me a sinner?

And every night, I help her do the dishes
By making sure I don’t get in her way,
So why she keeps insisting that she wishes
I’d shift my butt, is more than I can say.

I always lift the toilet-seat to pee,
And sometimes even put it down again.
If I can do it, surely, so could she,
And yet she never ceases to complain.

I try to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom,
But absent-mindedly may hit the middle.
That time I fried some eggs? I just forgot ’em;
The firemen kindly doused the flaming griddle.

I told her I’d be looking for a job
Quite soon, but that I’d given up for Lent.
She left that day, still calling me a slob;
I wonder what on earth she could have meant?

—Brian Allgar