Detective III

Her grin used to stretch as wide
as the lake in Port meadow, used to override
the rules and flood the banks of her cheeks
with warmth. But now it was tired,

a punctured tyre of a smile, a half curl,
a quick muscle tap, like the flick of the finger
on a cigarette dropping ash, draining the dust
of the past.

Her filofax was full of ex
boyfriends' numbers, flagged up
like busstops and as on a tea-stained map
you could run the route of her life with your nail,
trace the heartbreak signs around London
to that boyfriend on Hampstead Heath - with the Mini
and the massive bank account - who was hers last year,
whose money woudn't stretch
as far as a family or kids. And so she left,

to wrinkle and stain her teeth with sour coffee
that kept her eyes awake
but couldn't resuscitate
the faint beat of her heart.
A year on yet
her pulse would pump again in a culprit's clutch,
a big-time thief who would rob her memory bank
of sadness, stand her back on her own two feet and leave
his tender fingerprints on forehead,
bring her hot tea in the mornings
and sweeten her smile to the tulips
that she blossomed now as far as her sparkling
eyes, seraphin-style.

The Detective: II

He'd searched
for clues too many times
not to spot the signs.

The shimmering fishscale smile in her eyes
swooped to the surface of the iris-pond,
swirling like light on lilipads
was as clear a clue to him as any footprint

her new dress might as well have been a shred
of clothing caught on a rusty nail or hung
on the body; for her body, though unbloodied,
was the scene of the crime.

He didn't need hard evidence
to read the story right - the sight
of her soft back in bed
her shoulders turned to him
left him startled, suspicious, bereft-

enough clues to look back. So that when she left
with that other man he was already there,turning it
over in his mind, their bodies in the sack,the
broken love, the knife stuck
in the back.