(against creative writing)
A man has committed a murder
in the English Lake District.
He is strange - says
he's From Patagonia,
has thrown his revolver
in the water.
Describe the lake.
Do not mention the murder.
Don't look at the wife,
her photographs of picketing;
the canning factory
or the knife under the pillow;
the view from the window
of a jumbo jet - Yet
the lake and the hillside,
windsurfers, swans and
a trout farm your Father -
once missing - once went.
Say it again:
Describe a murder.
Do not mention the lake.