I should have had my suspicions
when I accidentally discovered that
she worked at the National Poisons Centre.
Perhaps, too, I should have been warned

by the scent of almonds, the scent
emanating, I presumed, from her clouds
of golden hair which, like Porphyria’s, fell
about her lovely shoulders
in such sweet chords and shrouds.

Above all I should have recognised her eyes,
so blue, so deep and blue, like fluted phials.
But I did not. How could I be so disposed
when her lips were half opened
and her eyes half closed?