The Course of My Wife’s Feelings

She loved me to start with (I know that);

but dwindled to greatly disliking;

(I won’t say hating, she was above that);

but unmistakably disliking (I could tell);

then made her way all the way back to neutral,

just short of friendly (I was useful, she could tell);

and then finally, definitely, liking again,

in a sort of chuckling, ‘That’s-Life’ way.

I’m sure she returned to loving me too,

although not as she had to begin with,

(nobody swims in that river twice),

but as inextricable fellow-traveler,

the flesh that fleshed out her own existence.