Sharon Waller Knutson

IT'S THE HUSBAND

the detective on Dateline
says as he bends over
the cold body of the wife.
He had murder on his mind,
says his partner, picking
up the bloody butcher knife.
And he cleaned the crime
scene, he says smelling bleach
on the wet rags in the sink.

If those two detectives
came to my house,
they’d find my husband
cleaning the kitchen
with dinner on his mind
and my warm body in bed.
They’d find the butcher
knife slick with slices
of watermelon he slides
on a plate for a snack.

Do you want fish or chicken?
Salad or soup? he asks
as he relaxes in the recliner
and spears his watermelon
with a fork. The detectives
would find this an act
of aggression and cuff
him and place him in the back
of the police car as his hearing
aides squeal as loud as the sirens.


Victoria Esposito's YouTube video reading of "It's the Husband":



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Sharon confesses: "When I fell and couldn’t walk, my husband became my caregiver. During this time, I watched a lot of true crime and in most of the cases the husband is the prime suspect. But sometimes the detectives are wrong and the husband is innocent. This got me to thinking and turned into a 'what if' poem."

SHARON WALLER KNUTSON is a retired journalist who lives in Arizona. She has published nine poetry books including My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields (Flutter Press 2014) and What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t Say and Trials & Tribulations of Sports Bob (Kelsay Books 2021), Survivors, Saints and Sinners (Cyberwit, 2022), and Kiddos & Mamas Do the Darndest Things (Cyberwit 2022.) Her work has also appeared recently in Discretionary Love, Impspired, GAS Poetry, Art and Music, The Rye Whiskey Review, Black Coffee Review, Terror House Review, Trouvaille Review, ONE ART, Mad Swirl, The Drabble, Gleam, Spillwords, Muddy River Review, Verse-Virtual, Your Daily Poem, and Red Eft Review.