Is this thing on?
Can you hear me?
Good.
Great.
OK.
The first poem I'll read is my second elegy.
And it's for Agatha Christie, who
I was very fond of as a child.
And I love the details in her book, The Old Fashioned
Elegance, and all sorts of things.
And I love the mystery.
And I love being able to figure out
who did it because she always made you hate the person even
though she never told you anything specific about them.
And when she died, she was the end of something special
in my life and for many people who
like to just curl up and read mystery stories.
And there's nothing like her.
She fits very well auden's essay the guilty vicarage read.
He talks about the ethics of the mystery story.
And I wrote an elegy for her.
Elegy for Agatha Christie.
In the pantry, a decanter reflects Topaz pools
on pastries and the tins as the late sun flows in
through an open window.
Outside, a tall woman bends and clips off
red roses for a perfect setting the guests first meeting.
That picturesque elegant dinner will
be disturbed by which person's memory of an incident in Egypt.
The butler yawns behind the door pauses before crossing the hall
and hears the guests rising from their chairs.
The sticky mark above an ear locks every door that night.
Upstairs, a girl in a flowered dress holds a photograph
and weeps.
The man in the corridor makes a fist
at his own image in the glass.
And all over the world, people sit up not wanting to finish
and still not able to sleep.
They think they know, knowing themselves.
Now, one woman is missed as our lost hours are not.
For us, she killed the individual, evil people,
and the hours characters for results.
They are not ourselves, or even like the crystals
of our hatred and distrust.
The heirs of a murder clearing up,
and the lost hours that save us for the accomplishment
of sleep.
We are grateful for the murders.
And we know that all she killed for us has now killed her.
Time and boredom preparing us for the rest.
That's dark and formal like the butler sleeping in a chair.
His large hands innocently folded between his knees.
The butler did it, of course.