His watery eyes, heavy as lead, sought

the pallid moonlight sneaking

past the heavy drapes and spreading

'cross the bed, while beside him

stood his weary wife of twenty years,

impatient and disgusted, faking the adopted role

in which he trusted

She spoke his name and forced a smile, and

in the candlelight held out the vial of

evil medicine meant to ease his pain,

all the while urging sleep

so she could gain her time away to see another;

her ailing husband's younger brother

Through half closed eyes he watched her leave,

the kiss upon his cheek a token, though

no words of love or sympathy were

spoken, and he clenched his teeth against

the pain that wracked his body,

once again knowing that his war for life

was so realized by his perfidious wife

This charade of union had run its course;

he would end her deception

without remorse, and summoning strength from

from a body stressed he arose from bed

and planned his course, for in her haste

to quick depart she'd erred, and left forgotten

on the desk directions to their duplicitous nest

Pain assaulted with violence unbearable,

legs stumbled on the cobbled street, as

grappling his way along the rough brick wall

the journey drove his booted feet, and

from his jacket came the small glass bottle

uncorked and raised with shaking hands,

he downed another gulp of laudanum

releasing the pain in fiery strands

A horse-drawn carriage rattled noisily past

and to the wall he turned his tormented face,

the sound of the snapping whip

alerting him sharply back to time and place,

and so through drugged and wispy vision

he moved toward his vengeful mission

Night's ledger recorded each clumsy footfall,

until by the gaslight on the corner he saw

the plated number that matched his paper's scrawl,

he blundered through the door into the dingy hall

and up the stairs before another jolt, too much to bear,

of horrific pain followed, and he clutched the bottle,

aware it was his last, raised it high and swallowed

Pushing on he climbed in fear toward

beckoning phantasms from the landing floor;

purchase sought on rough plaster walls

as the wraith-like fingers drew him to the door,

and with a nervous wipe across his mouth

o'er the prospect of what lay behind;

restraint unable to sustain,

he steeled his anguished mind

Her sight sprawled across the brass bed

in lustful abandon, tore from his lips her name,

reviling her with words of shame,

then he turned to face his brother

by a chair in the corner, face coloured with dread,

turning in panic, pleas left unsaid as he spied the drawn knife

too late for reprieve - and surrendered his life

The deed scarcely performed, for a tortured mind,

provided no clarity, nor was there charity for a wife

slain in kind

Overwhelmed by pain he viewed the act of

his betrayers attacked well removed from pity, and

suddenly soothed by the devil's breath as

functioning cells torn asunder, no longer

entailing the torment of wonder, succumbed

himself, to a welcomed death