The Disgruntled Lover

That you would turn me down, I never dreamt.

I was nonplussed that you would choose a youth

so rough and rude, in aspect so unkempt,

in manner so decidedly uncouth.

Disgruntled and distressed, in short I wept.

With fierce hot tears my eiderdown I scorched,

lamenting that I had been so inept

as to lose my love to one who was debauched.

At length my cries abated, and, dishevelled,

my face a mess, my hair, like his, unruly,

I made myself a meal of kidneys (devilled)

and wondered if I’d ever loved you truly.

Now tressed and hevelled, once more kempt, in truth,

I am gruntled, bauched, plussed, ruly, ept, and couth.

Frances Thompson