her four husbands, each man a puzzle 
beetroot stains on his pale grey jacket

an obvious clue on the first date

not to engage with the man who became

The first husband
should have withdrawn from Man number two

when he began to speak baby talk to his penis

(as if it were a pink budgie and just as cute       it wasn’t)

but by then too late
The third man, like the eponymous character

of the Orson Welles film, had secrets to be dug up

and she had him buried in soft grey sand

on a hot Perth summer’s day
given that he’d had six wives prior, and she’d

already had three husbands, then quite frankly

Number four was a puzzle she should have solved

well before