A Murder (inspired by John Berryman, Dreams Songs).

There settles down, doggedly, a notion
in Mary’s mind, a fierce fixation; if she tries
one hundred times or more, repenting,
restless, in all her wide-eyed nights,
to revert or terminate these terrors, she finds
always in her eyes there start again
specks, flutters, those same darned flies.

There’s a weight upon her heart,
like an antique jade vase,
positioned by a silk curtain,
determined to perpetuate her fears.
A weight she can’t budge from her side,
an errant load she cossets, of nothing certain,
wondering…

Mary never had, as she fancied she might,
murdered anyone in sight,
sliced the corpse up, thrown arms and legs
into the lake, where they’d not be found with net,
nor dredge, nor by an alibi she’d faked.

Mary knows: she counts everyone
twice over, and tots up, by sunset,
that somebody is missing;
and so downcast, she thinking sits,
…upset.