As if a Munchkin in her head

Had now unfurled a scroll,

She codified her morning dread

And how it wrenched her soul.

The list went on on on and on

From how the clouds occluded

The crescent moon and then the dawn,

To nursing breasts denuded,

Baristas getting orders wrong

For custom cappuccino

And tribute-band lines overlong

At this and that casino.

.

He nodded and tsktsked as she

Continued with her litany,

But when she moaned how there could be

Six ways you can spell Brittany,

He pulled a paper from his pants

And pen from his lapel

And wrote while she looked on askance.

She queried, “What the hell?”

.

He answered, “Dear heart, I’ve prepared

A document. Clairvoyance

Has helped to guide me where I’ve fared,

And now I chart Annoyance.

The thousand things that piss you off,

And spoil your disposition,

The thousand more that make you scoff

And fuel your indecision.”

She gaped. She sputtered. Melted down.

How dare he criticize?

He.listened to her with a frown

And fixed her with his eyes.

They stared across the clothed expanse

Of fancy bistro table

He signed the paper. One last glance;

He said, “Thus ends the fable.”

He rose and left. She watched as he

Paid off Anton their server

And strolled away, forever free

The better to unnerve her.

As for the document he left:

A front-load of WHEREASes

Preceded NOW, THEREFORE, and cleft

The doc with all those jazzes.

HE was annoyed, the doc declares

And not just by her sniping

Nor by her undisclosed affairs

Nor by her constant griping;

Nor by the secret bank account

Where she had funneled dollars

Nor for starch which by sheer amount

Abrasivized his collars.

No. His annoyance genesis

Stemmed not from what she did

But from the passion-barren kiss

Beneath the false-front lid.

He wished her well but not at the

Expense of future journeys.

For any other issues, she

Could contact his attorneys.

.

She shifted in her chair and stood,

And tucked his parting gift

Into her purse, and thought she would

Step out and call a Lyft.

No harm, no foul, she thought, beguiled.

May dread disease afflict him.

The cab pulled up. She brightly smiled.

So–who’ll be my next victim?