Unexpected

We hit some unexpected traffic:

a wretched five-way signal on a Sunday.

What would have been two minutes through the town

becomes a chance for conversation as

we sit, unmoving, in a queue.

A line of ornate barbed-wire on a wall

diverts my driver’s eye, and she exclaims,

‘A modern metal crown-of-thorns type sculpture…’

It isn’t every day my wife remarks

upon the world in lines of perfectly

constructed verse. I get my notebook out.

I write the words and tell her what I’m writing:

her unintended line of chance blank verse.

‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Fuck off!’ she shouts. It looks far worse in print.

The Shakespeare quote was her in mock-poetic

mode; the expletive – aimed at some buffoon

driving a Merc. She goes off on a rant

about the selfishness of other drivers

and then she stops. ‘I’ve been living with you

too long,’ she says. It’s good to rail against the

stupidity of others, I reply.

It shows you’re still alive. This doesn’t work.

‘You’ve imposed your stronger personality

over the course of thirty years,’ she says.

‘I’m now pissed off at the world – how come you

don’t like ballet, or dancing...?’ I’m too busy

writing this down to think of a riposte.

This doesn’t go unnoticed. ‘Write a poem

for me: an ode for Mother’s Day; an ode

to daffodils; an ode…’ and here, she tries

obscenity. I can’t write that! I shriek

(with laughter). Now she’s started, though, this

supposed student of my misanthropy

does not stop there, and launches, with both vigour

and verve, a blast of non-stop fluent swearing –

in French! – as unexpected as it is delightful.

I didn’t teach you that, I think, and laugh

out loud (again). ‘I like it when I make

you laugh,’ she says, taking a break from swearing

in French. The traffic starts to move at last,

the moment passes, as all moments do;

we find ourselves along a different road.