One day

One day, rambling along the riverside, I came across a person who turned out to be a gay, and the gay turned out to be a doctor, and the doctor turned out to be a man having a wife and a son. All the man needed was a man to be his husband.

That was too much for a man like me, thus I ran away never looking back. And who should I meet in the long run, but the gay doctor still looking for a husband.

"Give me your wife!" I said to him.

"No, I can’t," said he, drooping his eyes. "She won’t understand. But I can be your wife."

"Go to hell!" I cried and went on the run again. Well, who should I meet after a while, but a woman who turned out to be the wife of the gay doctor.

"Take my husband," she said. "He’ll make a good wife to you."

"And what about you being my wife?" I asked her 

"I am a married woman," she said. "And I don’t understand what you mean."

"Well," I said. "Then I’d rather adopt your child than take your man to wife."

And having said this, I broke into a run. Try to imagine what I felt when in the end I met a couple who turned out to be the doctor and his wife making their way to the nursery school to take their child home.

"Take me as your wife," said the man.

"Be his husband," said the woman.

"Never upon my life!" I cried.

"Craven," said the doctor.

"Coward," said his wife.

"May your son never know the need of a husband!" I said to them and took off in the shape of a rocket.

And I see no way it could turn out otherwise.


               
                2000



P.S.

J: If you were to publish the One Day poem on an American poetry site, a lot of the people would be upset and probably the administrator would remove it. That is the current climate that we live in, but on the Russian site, I don't think there would be any such problem, am I right?

I: Yes, you are right, on that Russian site a thing like that would not offend anyone, not even a gay.