What if she wasn’t dead,

found floating down river,

bathed in fallen leaves,

a dead man’s finger on her pulse

as her face turns grey, to draw

out a murderer, clever

hero, a feminine trope

dashed, thrown to her love

in England, a false sign of madness

spreading, in him melancholia,

in her a wailing of the emotions…

all lies, she drew the murderer out

and paid for it with her love,

as he lay poisoned by the touch of foil,

dead as she had thought to be

as her youth taken from her.

Ian D. Hall 2018