BEASTLY TALES

DECREE NISI

Maggie Mousedropping went to a lawyer,
He was the first lawyer to have saw her.
“I want a divorce!” She did loudly declare,
The lawyer “tutt-tutted”, but she was still there.
“What grounds do you have?” He did enquire.
“We live in a unit, no grounds, no mire.”
“Do you have a Grudge?” The lawyer asked.
“No garage, just a car-port unmasked.”
“Your husband, does he Beat you up?”
“I arise at six in the morning with a tea cup.”
“My husband is still snoring in bed,”
“Sometimes I think that he may be dead.”
“But no such luck! You didn’t hear what I said.”
The lawyer looked perplexed, shook his head.
“I see no grounds for a divorce,” is what he said.
She responded, “Compatible we’re not, can’t coexist.”
“No sensible conversation, especially when we tryst.”

Of course, divorce laws were more rigid back then.
You couldn’t get divorced just because you dropped a pen!
No “Decree Nisi” on a frivolous whim,
Whether it was against her, or against him.
So Maggie Mousedropping just had to wait,
Until Mr Mousedropping became late.
Yes, “dropped off his perch,” to coin a phrase.
“Popped his clogs,” at the end of his days.
Snuffed it to use the vernacular of the time.
“Passed away”, “Fell asleep”, ending sublime.
“Kicked the bucket”, a terminology more harsh.
But better than implying he died in the marsh.

It would be nice to think, him she kissed,
As he lay there stone cold, and to be missed.
But Maggie Mousedropping was having none of that.
“I can go back to my maiden name, Maggie Platt!”