The loneliness she felt, watching him leave,
knowing he would be with another woman,
didn't bother her. She remembered how
her body ached after he beat her the night
before. Left in their palace in the country,
she found she could pretend to be happy
while she calmly planned exactly how
and when he was going to die.
Her act was easy to understand when you
live like this. The story floated in the press—
that his death was the result of pure greed—
avoided the terror she felt. His temper could
blow out windows, with guttural sounds that
were almost inanimate in their eerie horrifics.
When the police arrived, the murder scene
had been dusted, as if the wind had found
an excuse to move the downstairs maid
through the room. She was pensive
as she watched them remove his body,
as if she thought destiny had some hope
that he would live forever. The dream felt
for her hand when they led her away.
Time was an enemy to no one that night.
Her innocence, in retrospect, fell dangling
at the side of her ruin. A sinner accused
of killing a saint, her martyrdom went
viral only when it was understood:
her triumph could never be so slight.
David's YouTube reading of "Murder One"
David confesses: I started work on "Murder One" in the 1990s. There were a lot of stories in the press involving wealthy families who had situations that were not all they seemed to be on the surface that ended up with a death and a suspected or confirmed murder. This poem wasn't inspired by a particular situation, but as is often the case with my poems, I just had this line come to me and followed it where it took me.
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