I Confide in Lady Macbeth about My Divorce

I Confide in Lady Macbeth about My Divorce

In my first poetry workshop, I wrote an acrostic
that spelled "murder." I tell her this, hoping she'll
see I've changed, that my acrostics now would spell
"tulip," "hyacinth," "daffodil," show the reader rooms
alight with blossom. But she misses my point.
"Look like th' innocent flower," she advises,
"but be the serpent under't." And even though
she clearly misunderstands, I know just what
she means. She might have told me instead
that all poems glove their meaning, that murder
is constant, perpetual, the hinge of all I write.