An answer: Unclever, ungiven, undone

A crowd. Suited. Tied. Watched-Rolex. Worldly. Erudite.

She is here, pretty. Dress, shoes, gloves.

He speaks. Preening. Glossy teeth. Words oozing out. Applause.

He is clever. Suited. Tied. Watched-Rolex. Cufflinks catch, glittering on lights.

A hand raised. Delicate. Ungloved. Not ringed. Red nails. Ignored.

Another hand. Cufflinked. Watched-Rolex. Question. Answer. Applause.

A delicate hand. Again ignored. Another hand. Answered. Applause.

A delicate hand. Eye contact. Flicker. Recognition. Passed over for him. Again.

A tie loosened.

She takes refuge in the bathroom.

Later. She is there. Still. Quiet. Tied, marks on her neck. Unwatched, no one saw.

Did not see her. Don’t know her. A lot of men wear ties.

Blue. Questions from the blue. Blue uniforms. Swarming, like odd little bees.

Suited. Tied. Watched. Look at the Rolex. These are not the clothes of a man who kills.  

Who was she? He? Were they? Ever?

Tied of the tongue. The little blue bees search on. Time travellers.

Was she clever? Pretty? Both maybe? Now you ask, there was a time. Once. Before. He was clever. She was pretty. Tied to her now. Watched-he cannot leave town.

Her gloves drape across her body. She is lowered into the ground.

Her words. Written down. Kept. Tied. In a pile in the drawer. Clever girl. A theft. Of thinking, of words.

I wrote what she wrote. We wrote together. I wrote better. Better punctuation. The words, yes, the words the same. Her words.

Recognition, confrontation, yes, in the bathroom. She fell. Fell. Unwatched, but tied- around her neck.

He is quiet. An answer ungiven. His tie. Her neck. Squeezed into silence.  

A theft of thoughts. Words. A book.

Cold  steel bars. Entitlement still not displaced with regret. Untied, chained, no cufflinks, still cuffed, watched, the Rolex gone, uniformed, no suit. Inelegant. Unclever. Undone.