Double Jeopardy Poem by David Lewis Paget

It was always a hassle on Fridays
To sort my weekends out,
If Angela said, ‘Those are my days, '
Then it left me in no doubt.
I would have to travel to Moira,
Come up with a good excuse,
‘I couldn't drive to the north, my dear,
I have a wheel bearing loose! '

So I'd have to put the car on a jack
And then unscrew the wheel,
Take my time in putting it back
I had to make it real.
Then Monday kissing her and the kids
A fond and a long goodbye,
‘Make sure you wear your bicycle lids,
I'll see you, bye and bye.'

And Angela would welcome me home
She'd had a rough weekend,
She'd taken the kids to their grandma's, then
Had tended a sickly friend.
We had three days to rumple the bed
Until I had to go,
Arriving back at Moira's, just in time
To take in a show.

It wasn't a set routine because
It varied from week to week,
Angela was the stay-at-home,
Moira the dancing freak,
I'd married Angey at twenty-one
For she loved to stay at home,
And Moira, wed just five years on
Who always wanted to roam.

I managed to keep the two apart
And I led a varied life,
A quiet romp with the stay-at-home,
A fling with my roaming wife,
But the kids had come, with three for one,
And two for the other half,
And what once seemed the perfect dream
Became an ironic laugh.

Lucky I had a well-paid job,
Lucky I held it down,
Keeping the one a stay-at-home
While the other raged in town,
I thought I must be the only one
To have complicated my life,
But that was until a man called Bill
Spoke of his second wife.

He must have been drunk, he said he was
Or he wouldn't have said a thing,
He said that it only started off
As a mad, misguided fling,
He'd met the first in a ladies bar,
And she'd gone to his lonely bed,
It became a loose, irregular thing
And before he knew, was wed.

She always wanted to gad about,
She never would stay at home,
He got so sick of the nightclub clique
That he lost the will to roam.
He met another who liked to sit
And cuddle up by his side,
And in a moment of madness then
She became his second bride.

‘It seems to work, but it's hard to plan
For they both have days away,
I have to coordinate my time
With the one that's free that day.'
‘The same with me, I'm never free,
I haven't sufficient time,
When I want a quiet night at home
She wants to dance the line.'

A week went by since our talk, and I
Was sat in the Scarlet Lounge,
Waiting for Moira to come by
When I spotted Bill with Ange!
They walked right by, and I heard a sigh
As Bill saw Moira Freeze,
I hid behind a pillar as Ange
Went off by herself to sneeze.

I waited till she was on her own
Then went and confronted Ange,
‘What are you doing here, my dear,
Here in the Scarlet Lounge?
You always wanted to stay at home
Are you on your own out here? '
While Bill on the other side of the lounge
Was questioning Moira dear.

So Moira was Bill's quiet one
While she led me quite a dance,
And Ange, who was my stay-at-home
Was going with him to prance!
We thought that we were the bigamists
But it's left us in some doubt,
We think that they may be trigamists
On the days that we're both shut out!

25 January 2015