Murder Mystery
for Collin
You know how it is.
Lilac thick
county
in the English countryside
with the body count
of metropolitan Washington.
The hero will be older,
with a fondness for opera
and barky dark beers.
His hale young sergeant,
thirty-something
but with boyish lips,
a rugger’s build,
often dismissed
as a dumb puppy.
The murderee wears white,
blood delicate as cherry splash.
In the forensic silence
a red-throated bird
insists on something.
A kindly aristocrat
who smells of sherry
and cheap shaving cream
has iced his lower village lover,
but we don’t know this
until everyone else
with a teacake of motive
is humiliated for their longing.
The youthful sidekick
who has stumbled on the truth
will almost drown
or run out of air in a vault,
or scream until he blacks out
in a baronial basement
while the chief inspector’s
footsteps tap the floor above,
gentle as spring rain.
