It’ll never work, said my friends, and I have to admit

            When I looked at it that way,

            Like a spreadsheet or a Venn diagram,

            They were right: there wasn’t much

 

            She liked Eighties europop and I liked Fifties bebop,

            Which should have scared me off right from the start, I guess

 

            She never used chopsticks at a Chinese restaurant

            And I never could do without them

 

            Hot yoga was her idea of cool

            But I didn’t much relish twisting or sweating,

            Especially not simultaneously

 

            She had fixed opinions about virtually everything

            And brooked no discussion

            Whereas I muddled along rounding corners

            Instead of turning them

 

            When she talked – which wasn’t much –

            It was nuts and bolts in a language that could have been

            Greek to me

            (Although it wasn’t)

 

            And I couldn’t tell whether my rhapsodic eloquence

            About the sheen of her hair or the contour of her calf

            Went over her head or right through her (fetching) ears.

 

            But in that in-between time of stars and stillness

            Things happen

 

            Down in the garden beneath our window

            I could swear we set off a chorus of critters

            Who have something in common