The Woman in the Corridor - For One Shoot Sunday

The "crinkle, crinkle" of dried leaves in the long corridor.

I found you here love, on the freezing floor.

Your lips all blood in a white dress.

You'd been following a lie.

A lie. Yes.

Fallen as if struck in the small of your supple spine.

Spread-eagled; prone, delicious and divine.

How long I’ve longed to devour you,

A long I have been a beast.

A beast. True.

You seemed innocent, so blameless as you lay there,

Face framed by your straight, cascading hair,

Dark and clean, so fragrant and fine,

That as I lifted you, I

Wilted. Mine.

Enraptured I became by you, my black obsession,

My sleeping beauty and my possession,

Made to carry you from this dark.

But I return you here now,

To die. Hark.

Listen to these words because I know what you are,

Trickster. You came here from so very far,

Beneath my errant feet, to tempt me so.

Harpy. Siren. I won’t.

I can't. No.

You turn from me. For a moment I feel my shame.

I may be wrong, but then, you speak my name.

Like a curse, I'm shaken. I crack.

So I draw and shoot you once

In your back.

Your collapse is instant, hurtling in freeze-framed death.

I imagine the scar the bullet left,

Across your rictus shocked aspect.

I leave you as I found you,

Resplendent and wrecked.