The Married Lot

a poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Wine stained sunset, warm ale and rain.
The cat is sick of the lazy lady next door,
Whose husband is drunk
When coming home from work.
Once he was sober for
A week that was when his mother-in-law took ill
And the wife went to visit her,
A woman she hadn’t seen for twenty years,
To be sure that she got her inheritance.
The cat is sick of her whining voice and
Of her husband too who occupy the garden shed
every weekend, the cat’s own domain.
It has to snooze in the neighbour’s garage
Which smells of diesel oil.