The Dragon Ring Poem by David Lewis Paget

I'd been courting my Fiona
For a year or two, to date,
We'd been through the lovers' gridlock,
Love, indifference, and hate,
On a good day we'd be soaring,
On a bad day we'd descend
To the pit of constant warring,
Though we'd make up, in the end!

And the making up was endless,
It was better than the best,
We would spend the day exploring
In our less than virgin nest,
And she'd cry for Mother Mary
At that last, and parting thrust,
When she saw my eyes adoring
At the zenith of our lust!

Then the day came when Fiona
Said she needed her own space,
Felt restricted, in a corner,
Had the need to run her race,
I must leave her to the options
That would straighten out her head,
It was that, or dare she say it…
(She would leave that word unsaid!)

But the word was ‘separation',
And we both knew it was true,
And I felt her desperation
In my desperation too,
For the green-eyed god was rising
As her green-eyed goddess fled,
She was calm - how unsurprising!
When she left me there for dead.

I could see her on a Monday
And on Wednesdays, Thursdays too,
But the weekends were forbidden,
That was girls' time, things to do,
So I sat and hugged my chagrin
To my chest, while staying home,
As my rank imagination
Stirred and festered as it roamed!

We would make love on a Monday
And pretend: ‘There's nothing wrong! '
I would peer into her eyes to find
Just where her nights had gone,
But her eyes, they would avoid me
And she'd lost much of her lilt,
She'd sit quiet in the corner
In a mood I saw as guilt!

Then one Monday, as she showered
I went through her writing desk,
Ruffled through her private papers
Read her diary, as a test.
There was nothing too revealing
She had covered up her tracks,
But I found my eyes were stealing
To a box, well sealed with wax.

I loosened up the wax before
She came out in the cold,
And saw the ring she'd bought for me,
A signet, band of gold,
And on the ring a dragon, so
I knew it was for me,
I placed the box back on the shelf
Most surreptitiously!

A week or two went by, Fiona
Kept it to herself,
She never said a word about
The signet on the shelf,
I wondered when she'd offer it
I'd hoped it would be soon,
And went to buy a ring myself
That very afternoon.

We had a friend, Joe Burgess,
Who she'd known since she was four,
He often called around the flat,
Came knocking at the door,
I saw him in the supermart
He hailed me, with a grin,
As I went pale, and sick inside,
He wore a dragon ring!

But that was seven weeks ago,
We haven't seen him since,
Fiona said: ‘It's strange you know,
He promised me a quince!
And then he disappeared, I think
He might have woman strife! '
She laughed, and I was tempted, but
Put down the carving knife.

I thought back to the riverside
And how I'd rolled his car,
From off the steep embankment as
He'd struggled on the floor,
Fiona turned, and said: ‘Oh well;
It's time that I came clean…'
And handed me the little box
That held the dragon ring!