To me, this sounded so final and trite,
But his wife, she said, left him,
Cause she couldn't be a wife.

There's a fine epitaph to carve,
On the stone above his life:

My wife, they say, left me,
Cause she couldn't be a wife;
That's all she ever wanted,
To be this dead man's wife.

A couple passing by the script,
Might read an enigmatic drift.

What kind of wife, the woman asked,
I wonder what he meant by that.

One who'd drink and drink some more,
Smoke and eat and grow so fat
On Caesar's Salad and chocolate.

Could she nurse through any sickness;
See it for what it is;
For what it was;
Work with the outcome,
Not the cause.

And yet, it's true, all along,
He wasn't in control.
Not abuse, or waywardness,
But the drink that dries the soul.

What could that wife do
In the fight.

They each promised,
Each meant each life;
Does she get to choose the sickness?
What kind of wife gets to pick it?

I know he didn't give objection,
As many husbands do,
When she raised ablutions
To false gods she eschewed;
They promised on the temple pinnacle
That all is theirs, if she submits,
To the pyramids that promise riches.

Till death do us part.

Now that's a lark,
In a song of lament.
She could have been any wife
She'd deem to choose in her life;
She chose,
For a limited time,
On a definition
He declined.