Dr Crippen
He thought, as he boarded the ship, The vessel of his deliverance, The conduit of his elusion, that his wife Still lay where he left her, Certified dead. But that Was only the marriage certificate. It blows in her fingers as she reads And re-reads what he has done to her. Her puzzled face has watched His performance for years And now sees nothing in his act That loves her. Her poison Is not so fast; shell live through it, Right up to his last breath, Or hers.
The knowledge that the barb Was tipped for her end, even as Her husband took up the pen In the church, is pursuing The hyoscine in her bloodstream.
Crippen is escaping on water, But truth is quicker now, Fast as a shout and pregnant with disclosure.
His story has already arrived, And is waiting.
Frieda Hughes
(Waxworks by Frieda Hughes is published by Bloodaxe on 24 October).
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