The day had been rather stormy when
I walked in the garden gate,
With lighting flashing around me,
It was dark, and getting late.
I tried the key in the old front door
But found that it didn’t fit,
And had to pound on the knocker so
That Kate would answer it.

It took a minute or so before
I heard her steps on the floor,
She probably wondered who it was
Before she opened the door,
She stared at me with the strangest look
On her face that I’d ever seen,
But stood there blocking the door, I said,
‘Aren’t you going to let me in?’

She stood aside in a moment then
And I walked in through the door,
She said, ‘And what’s the occasion then?
You’ve not called here before.’
I thought she must have been joking then
And gave her a sickly smile,
She said, ‘you’d better believe it, you
Have not been here for a while.’

I tried to give her a kiss, but she
Pulled back, and turned away,
‘The time for that was an age ago,
That was another day.’
I asked her what she had meant, for she
Had been my wife for years,
‘Not since you married my sister, and
You turned my world to tears.’

I said that I didn’t follow her,
And must have looked confused,
She said that I’d turned my back on her
And left her feeling used,
‘You broke off from our engagement, when
The date had just been set,
And went and married my sister then,
You’re married to Jeanette.’

I thought I was going crazy, though
Perhaps, I thought, it’s Kate,
Having a mid-life crisis, but she
Looked at me with hate.
She said to go to her sister’s place
Just further down the street,
So thinking that I would humour her
I went, through hail and sleet.

I tried my key in Jeanette’s front door
And that gave me a shock,
The key had fitted it perfectly
As then the door unlocked,
I wandered into the kitchen where
Jeanette was making tea
For a man at the kitchen table,
But I swear the man was me!

David Lewis Paget