I’m sick of all our namby-pamby couples friends

            Who can’t go anywhere in single file

            And frown on us –

            Albeit in the nicest possible manner –

            Because we live in separate homes

            Without either a toddler or a dog

            And refuse to march in lockstep or salute

            When they start in on kindergarten

            As the gateway to a doctorate

 

            One evening I had had my fill

 

            Not just of wine (the only way to stomach

            The displays of their togetherness in everything

            From soup they sip exchanging spoons

            To sluts in babysitters’ guise

            They’d never let within a thousand miles

            Of their darling’s ten-foot pole)

 

            But of the way they danced –

 

            Which was apart

 

            Because they’d been so busy

            Striding side by side along a graded road

 

            The graceful twirl and glide to changing tempi

            Left them lurching in the lurch and on their own

 

            They tried to make the best of it

            With smiles and winks across the gulf

 

            Occasionally

            A twitch or two would hit the beat

            By chance

     

            It was a sorry sight

 

            So Ursula and I decided we should take the floor

            To show them what the strength and suppleness of

            Two charmed into one by choice

            Might do

 

            No matter where we’d spend the night