Would he have killed her by now
somehow,
all neat and
tidy and in time
for retrospect, the
tying of loose ends,
bookending parents’
picture shelves, a few
years or more of watching
themselves widening time to
allow room for portraits stepped out of yearbooks?

Would he? Somewhere in circumstance would she
be his victim cut out of whodunit whydunit
climax… a character killed off for reasons
only an author knows, an author who
doesn’t have to say why she died?
Readers need to know. So does
the one who might have
suffered, but
only up
to the
last
breath.

Would he have killed her by now
if he hadn’t already died and
bloodied the old road,
splattered that old
road with every
last bloom
of her?

Maybe he would have grown
up to be a monster
and killed her
for loving
You.