The living teeter at the edge of a cliff.
Below the living lies the lake, that slick, black
plate of water, and just behind them purred

a car as dark and hollow as a hearse.
I dipped my pen into that inky place.
The cloudy brow of night

was furrowed in concern,
because the living did not seem to know
that they were being stalked by me.

Night after night I tried to nudge them
into the water, the path of a train,
or my oncoming speed.

But they were always busy:
The woman in red waxed
and waned, smoldered like a mine fire

just beneath the surface of the page.
And the woman in white was always 
asleep inside the simple moonbeam of herself.

The car was ready, and the cliff;
the moon was a drop of mercury
that rolled back and forth across

the night, and beside the black
vat of reservoir I had planted witnesses
like flowers in the rubber pots of their galoshes.

I sat and smoked and lingered.
Inside me a murder sulked and ached
like a lake behind a dam.

I was waiting until the world was on my side
and would turn itself murderous for my sake.