My father was a tetchy man. He knew. It was his nature and he tried to quell His irritable beast. He coped, not well, But adequately, and his wives coped too, Each in their different ways. My mother threw The butter at him, and it rang the bell. He thrust his temper back into its shell And shut the fuck up. That was what to do. His second wife, the wife he married for His children, that one, she was not the same. She could not answer back or slam a door. She was a gentle soul, she could not…