Mrs Chaucer

(a gentle parody of Carol Ann Duffy's 'Mrs Aesop')

By God, he could bore for hours. He was big,
didn't exaggerate. Didn't need to impress. "Quiet men,
Mrs Chaucer", he'd say, "tell no tales". Well let me tell you now
that a tale in his hands was hard to believe,
never mind the two he had up his sleeve. Fabulous.

Going out was best. He'd hurdle the gate without looking, just leap;
wind up in the hedgerow with a squashed mouse, or the field
with a surprised fox, fly down the lane like a swallow
that couldn't wait for summer. The applejack, according to him,
was better than the mead. Geoffrey would, on the whole, prefer to be legless.

On one amazing evening crawl, we passed a young pair
courting in a ditch - he stopped and took note -
then about a mile further on, a tryst, somebody's wife,
creeping, outside marriage, into her lover's abode. "Home
and close the curtains, Mrs Chaucer, race you back!" Top hole!

What a night, the opposite of rape! Between silk sheets,
under the stairs, places stranger, what all night? No way
I could really fall asleep as the frenzy banged on
towards the climax of itself. "Action, Mrs C., speaks louder
than words". And as you've guessed, the sex

was unbelievable. I gave him a table one day
engraved with a cockerel about to crow, he gazed hard at it
with a heart gladder than when he'd got his favourite bottle.
" You can dash off your next tale on that", I said, and kissed his face.
That choked him up. Then we laughed together, strongest.

copyright John Webber 2006

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