Miss Marple Solves the Mysteries of the World
        (á la the BBC)

You never know what awaits you

around the next corner. The body in the library

is dressed in lily-white taffeta. Each season,

another epidemic unfolds—be it emotional

or spiritual, a re-assorting of the heart

after we've come in contact

with that many more breathing souls. A person

is an incubator of sorts, a petri dish

of desire—each wish individual

as a fingerprint and skeptical

as a private eye. I'll never live

in a time period where women

unthinkingly slip on their elbow-length,

satin gloves. We all want what we came for,

just some of us want it more. The human face

is soft and malleable, and as inscrutable

as the tea leaves slushing about

at the bottom of the china cup

you are cradling now. Who wouldn't

want to drench themselves in the tawny,

half-light of a British dusk, the rain always

sniffling to itself somewhere

out in the audience? There's no World War I

in my past, no disillusioned fighter pilot. There are,

however, a slew of doubts, some uncanny

precipices, a burst, here and there,

of magenta azalea bushes, and a knack

for obsessing over details, just like any sleuth

on the hunt for clues. Your mind

is a gutter, Miss Marple, your judgment

a road refining its dark light

under the influence of an evening mist.

Come in, have a look around. We welcome you

into our parlor, we hope

you enjoy your stay at our house.

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Copyright © 2016 Alexandra van de Kamp All rights reserved
from Kiss/Hierarchy
Rain Mountain Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission