When he’s away she doesn’t like it much,
Pushing the reheated food around the plate,
The big, brass key rigid in the lock
Which she’ll go back three times
To check before turning off the radio
And taking the water-glass to bed.

Christie, Sayers, Marsh are sitting
Well-mannered on the shelf
Pushed in tight to keep
Their suave murderers inside,
Their victims choked cries unheard.

She turns over onto her other side
Pushing the pillows forward, back,
Thinking of the spinster pulling weeds
And tidying the tubs in her well-tended
Garden in St. Mary Mead, between murders
As it were, but soon will come
The poison pen, the bullet in the dark
That could have been blindly fired
When the house’s lights went out
But was only ever meant for one.