A Mawkish Ode to Murder
She was night at its blackest heart
It’d be stupid not to, right?
It began with slaying metaphors,
that gifted an initial rush
like blood orange splatter
in the opening frames of a thriller.
They were in birth removed from meaning
in death not grandiose or too long.
In the faint haloes of streetlamps
she lurked at leisure
primarily at night, though not exclusively.
Orchestrating the falling in your dreams
a held frame before moving on.
Next came self-doubt
That one was easy, no witnesses
She flicked it like a marble off a table
rolling, rolling, lost to ground.
She could strike at any time like a mad wind
that was what happened to small talk
swept under the carpet,
asphyxiated there.
Idiocy put up a fight
demanded a ceremony of farewell
As per usual, it stretched toward that red button
like a ripe tomato
begging to be pushed.
She had to coax it out
abandoned it on the highway
saw the truck as it receded
from the unsettling pink dust.
Catherine O’Brien is an Irish writer of poems, flash fiction and short stories. She writes in both English and Irish. She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature. You can find her on Twitter @abairrud2021