an ill-timed sigh

here by grace of god go I,

formally charged with:

arrogant skullduggery;

an ill-timed church-pewed sigh;

embellished misplaced modesty;

one self-destructive little lie;

surpassingly inferior poetry;

misfired, too strained hilarity …

and a grisly murder

in rural tennessee

in the first degree

of a drunken damselfly—

and I’m here left hanging

so bare of alibi.