I love the ending!
It took me several readings over several days to understand the ending. Finding the poem in any other venue, I wouldn't have gotten to it.
The poem has a pleasant, conversational tone, giving the narrative a straightforward feel, but the timeline is anything but straightforward. Here's my best stab at ordering the events chronologically from earliest (A) through most recent (J).
C Wife goes sleepily to the store for a stick of butter.
A Reference to earlier shopping trips.
J Wife dozes at the stove, the day after the shopping trip
D (presumably) Return to previous day
F Wife tries to talk to husband
E Husband comes home
G Husband's beeper wakes wife
H Husband's snore wakes wife
I Beeper (or snore) disrupts TV watching
B The other Paul drives to the store and is seen there by wife
D Paul and wife meet at the checkout counter
I suppose the convoluted telling shows how sleep-deprived she is?
The B moment, Paul's arrival at the store, is particularly confounding. I think it happens before the C moment, because the wife has only come for a stick of butter, but she also seems to have "just dodged the meat pillar" when he arrives. Also, she names him, though (unless I'm confused) she won't learn his name until later.
The title seems to suggest that the wife was going to write about this in her diary, but decided to tell her husband about it.
This rewards rereading and thinking about. The convolution discourages this reader from doing those things. Dunno whether other readers are likely to feel the same.
FWIW.
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