If David Beach is right, and
a poem is an opening line
plus work, then how to work
up this opening line when it has
already done the hard slog for you,
like the husband working on his
martyrdom who presents you
with dinner in a spotless house,
and on top of that flowers,
this last — a semaphore that says,
with L'Oréal, you're worth it —
only adding to the burden of debt
and cancelling anything you might bring
to the table before it's been set down?
And so you fall towards the bottom
line instead — to find he has arrived
before you, and had the last word.
A cage went in search of a bird.