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The Expert in Death

She reluctantly closed the book,
locking the painting back inside her mind,
then a sudden frisson of emotion,
another surreal-reveal moment,
and her smile was flint; lips unmoving
as slices of memory were being served…cold.
 
The relationship began with an Internet handshake
and a few engaging discoveries about each other.
It developed weekly, daily via the telephone,  
stretching from Whitefish, Montana to Dover in Kent.
Initially, they felt distanced from each other
but soon they were emotionally in the next room.

A month later, in London, they met, 
a spill of nervousness, a thrill of emotions
and that night jazz developed their relationship,
an allegro rhythm which rose to a presto beat 
and then ‘hey presto’ they were moving in together.
He, a job in London; she followed, as did their marriage.

The months hustled by, the clock ticked relentlessly
but their allegro rhythm slackened, slowed to adagio.
Then gradually he began to control, to criticize
and, on one occasion, even bully with bruises.
It pleasured him, darkened him, reminded him
and slowly he began to feast on it.

But he hadn’t noticed that someone else had moved in!
The artist, Salvador Dali, had slipped into her imagination
and had decided to settle, to stay, to simmer.
So now the surreal had entered their relationship
but what he did note was the tickling cough again 
and the spit of pain, occasionally scoring his stomach.

Preparing the evening meal, she felt for the perfumed bottle
caressing its curved edges she flushed with excitement,
soon she was adding seasoned drops of Aqua Tofana,
those special ingredients: arsenic, lead and belladonna
and she slyly sed at the irony of the situation.
He thought HE was the power and SHE knew he wasn’t!

Very soon now she was to be a widow…..a black one
but she knew she wouldn’t cry, she’d been disconnected, 
and after all, she was now an expert in death.
She thought once again of the book, the painting,
the Salvador Dali image - Death Outside the Head
and then of the enduring journey of her subconscious.

Ian Souter Nov, 2024
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