I’d like to explain la difference (vive!)
between the morës of Adam and those of Eve.

When a man buys drinks at a busy bar,
arrives at a drive-in in his car,
stands at the counter in Victoria Wine,
or steps on a queued-for 89,
you can be sure he’s thought, he’s planned:
he has his money in his hand.
But when she’s at the bar, or gets on a bus,
it’s only then she thinks of her purse.
So she unzips her bag, begins to rummage.
The queue behind’s become a scrummage.
She’s unconcerned. Her smile is wide.
She says, “Oh, it must be in the other side.”
She smiles again, has another look,
unearthing keys, Lillets and a book,
toothbrush, spare knickers and, at last, the purse.
And then she opens the wrong bit first.
She counts seventeen coins to pay the one-thirty
then wonders why everyone seems so shirty.

A good sense of humour. What everyone wants —
men and women. Pas une différence?
But a humorous woman to an ordinary bloke
is a lass that laughs at all of his jokes,
while she wants a man who’s witty and hearty,
makes guests laugh at dinner parties,
is self-deprecating, clowns with her child
and is bested only by Oscar Wilde.
And when she tells jokes — she speaks too slow,
and after she’s done, she murmurs “No,
I should have said four, I think, not nine,
and it was a donkey in the punchline.”

“I’ll just go to the bathroom.”
She thinks she’s gone back to the womb.
In the end, I forget she’s there.
I read two books with time to spare.
She’ll be there till the crack of doom.
A woman’s living in my bathroom.

Pissing blood. It was thick blood too.
I knew that I had too much to do
but she said I should go to the doctor.
She phoned. I could have clocked her —
it clashed with the Liverpool derby.
She’s such a bloody harpy.
And I’d planned to go out drinking.
Anyway, she knew I was thinking
of skipping the quack, so she shook me,
threw me in the Corsa and took me.
Just cos I moaned, she didn’t have to shout.
They say the op worked, they took it out
even though I was feeling fine.
They said something like “Got it in time,”
and I suppose the pain is less searing.
But why is she so interfering?

Have you ever ordered pudding
and she says “I mustn’t!” and sits brooding
on pictures in her copy of Vogue
of women who look like Moss and Minogue.
The profiteroles arrive — so sweet —
and before you’ve even started to eat
her eyes are burning like those of a cat.
She pounces. “Do you want all that?”
She takes your spoon. “Just a taste.”
All gone. “Don’t like it going to waste.”

So I’m sitting in the Trevor Arms
with my beloved, lost to her charms.
We rise to go, put on coats, gloves too,
then she says, “Oh! I’ll just pop to the loo,”
so I’m standing there like a polar explorer
as she touches up lipstick, hair. I wait for her.
Minutes pass. Possibly hours.
Irritation grows. Desire sours.
She says, “It’s not that important, is it?”
but she does it every single visit.

There’s one way that we’re cheese and chalk:
for men, it’s never the right time to talk.
It may be the time to drink with mates,
for flowers when she remonstrates,
to take your turn to use the hoover,
to comment that Angie’s a beautiful mover,
and it may, often, be the right time for sex —
yes, it’s usually the right time for sex,
but there are four words at which all men baulk:
(I can hardly say them) “We need to talk!”

But women are always right. They do
tell me this, so it must be true.