Friday Afternoon Anecdote (Revised) Poem by Margaret Alice Second

I wander into the kitchen to find you busy with
soup, wonderful soup, we should dance a soup
quadrille as the crying Mock Turtle stated in
Alice in Wonderland – but I brought home
work and don’t want to start just yet … thus

Like a cross between Henry VIII and Hamlet,
an effect of grey leggings and my all-purpose
black camp top while being short – Henry VIII
is me; filled with enthusiasm for a few Arabic
lines to be translated into English, each letter

Scrutinised to determine in which of its forms
five each appears, every expression like ‘ter
marbutha’ carefully analysed and finding
the ‘m’ the easiest letter to recognise, I’ll
adjourn in a Friday afternoon anecdote

8 June 2013 Friday Afternoon Anecdote