Chaperone

Chaperone

(On looking at a painting of two young people And their Chaperone .)

Chaparone, she sits along Between the warmth of lovers’s stares They wish that they could be more close They wish she wan’t there. Gooseberry, the taste is sour She hangs around their every hour Her need is great and she devours Their sighs, their moans, their glee.

A funny chair to keep then there Beyond the touch of lash or lip Her stern rebuke that they forsook The veil they long to rip. She took a note of what she saw And kept them strictly to the law — O such a failed ménage à trois And no indecency.

The mores of a stolid race That keeps these lovers in their place The varnish of an age that keeps Them pining for release. And back to back, not tête–à–tête They laugh, and she sticks in her prate Between them sits a world of hate And stiff morality.

Chaperone, she sits along Between the warmth of lovers’s stares They wish that they could be more close They wish she wan’t there.

— © Frank Callery, December 2016.