—a contrapuntal in the voice of Marie Lafarge[1]

Opaque as a poorly made engagement.                                            

Dense as my desire to be a good wife.

Cut callous as rutilated quartz.                                           

Suspended between matrimony and martyrdom.

I’ve trudged through the lust of a loveless marriage.

                                                                        I’ve traveled the sore forest of sympathy.

There’s always inheritance powder’s insistence.

                                                               There’s always the fairer weather of forgiveness, but—

Arsenic is a quick mist to shift through—

                                                                        it would be a painful death—

so other pains could be put to rest.

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[1] Marie Lafarge was a French woman accused of poisoning her husband Charles by lacing his fruitcake with arsenic after he conned her into marriage under the false pretense of being a millionaire. She was the first person to be convicted of murder using forensic toxicological evidence in 1840.