1) each week

she'd be in the same
place only differently

sometimes speaking Italian
and sometimes not

her friends were young
with curled hair and often
motorbikes and rings

sometimes she laughed

he watched

and when she spoke
he couldn't help

he listened


2) over to you

his footsteps were a fleshy thing
tiptoeing and enjoying it
the floor seemed warm
where she had trodden

tacky or tactile?

you decide


3) more clues

and so those beheaded days
befriended him
his stealth of sight fisted
behind his back

it was him who saw through
the judge's fingerprints upon
the glass

her suspect signature
the address book torn
not quite in half

and he could introduce himself
in the house that was incomplete

she took aim with glowing eyes

"I'll take what he was drinking."


4) interview technique

at dawn he questioned
the raw accomplices again

his haggard tie caught the first light
like nicotine stains around his collar

in the narrow air he formed
a question like paper
forms a cigarette


5) baby blue eyes

they had picked the same clue
though from a different angle

fleshing out dry
stealth with passion lungs

it seemed to him
whatever was remaining hidden
had to be next

his secret of undoing
and of touch

but when she kissed him
what did she really mean?


6) and on the night he was murdered

the sunset was the best clue
that day
its bright hand closing
into violence

on the houseboat they drank
and argued
their loud words falling
to the water’s fatal tic

a dog moon rose
muscled and unaccountable

she watched moonlight write
her name on water
and waited for the absolute
the perfect moment

like she was waiting for a wind
to erase the light