Weekend memories
by cricketjeff on July 25, 2009. © Jeff Green, All rights reserved
Each Saturday he sat to do his pools
And, cleaning done, she sat to do her knitting.
Their daughter thinks of how he cursed the fools
And how her mother simply kept on sitting.
On Sunday afternoons he sat and snored,
His wife looked on until she also dozed.
So comfortable, not terminally bored,
The TV on but all four eyes were closed.
The funerals were just a year apart
And now the house she knew is strange and cold.
The “clearing out” is tearing out her heart,
Their lives and hers are waiting to be sold.
It’s Saturday and silently she stares;
She simply can’t believe two empty chairs.
Author notes
Shakespearean sonnet in IP (lines 2 and 4 with feminine rhyme) on the prompt
“Empty Chairs”
I do not know how well “the pools” travels. The “Football Pools” were for many
years the only legal form of gambling that could bring you a large prize in the
UK. Players had a list of all the football league and Scottish football league
matches each week, and tried to predict eight draws. Then ritualistically they
would sit watching the sports programmes on Saturday afternoons filling in the
results to see if they were suddenly millionaires!
English