Stretch Or Gasbag Poem by Douglas Scotney

The name of the woman at the head of the queue
sounded like Dean, but she spelled it Dehne.

I said it's German and should be said like Deigner.

'I know, ' she said, 'but in Australia what can you do? '

'It sounds like a verb, ' said I.
'Have you any idea what it means? '

'It means beautiful woman, ' one-lined the guy nearby.

She laughed, and said she hadn't a clue.

I said, 'My mother's maiden name was Will;
her stock was from the northern Rhine.
Her sobriquet at school was Won't.
I speak German and should know it,
but, you know, I don't.'

It means to expand;
to stretch a rubber band
or your body;
a long stretch of land;
to lengthen;
to dilate;
at a stretch, to be long-winded,
to seem as if you've been here for an hour,
when you've only been here a minute.

'What you can do, I mean,
is before you're called Stretch or Gasbag,
change the spelling to Dean.'