Kill Your Darlings

Incident Report

She waited seven days before reporting his death.
He was so mean even the dead would reject him,
sending his bags packing back to her.
It would give him a second chance to repent
or increase his excesses of abuse.
He always brought misery with his company.

She did not eat, expecting him to nag
about how she weighed more than a heifer.
He would comment about how she slopped
like a pig on leavings,
chewing with her mouth open, gumming it;
she would not want to embarrass him.

She waited for permission to leave the table.
Eventually she took the hint
he was not coming back. She got dressed
wearing her Going-To-Church hat,
took her Bible where he’d underlined her sins,
and set out to the sheriff to explain
why she put the hatchet in her husband’s head.