In lieu of murder. . .

If you're my villain, I'm your villanelle:

the diminution of your ill intent

a fetching demon in your chosen hell.

Your paradise: what might and what befell,

Cold honeymoon to Greenland in a tent.

If you're my villain, I'm your villanelle.

This is a truth no crooked tongue can tell,

Nor parse with reason so severely bent,

Church tower with a broken bell,

Above an empty altar, captive to your spell.

That can't be rung, lest all its history be spent,

Our battle, on the Glengesh Pass of Donegal,

You gave the wheel to your sweet damozel

Insistent she, not to die upon the steep descent,

Nor afterward, you pissing feeble pimpernel,

You patriarchal puffed-up post-doc whining weasel,

Who stole the love that I, enraptured, lent,

If you're my villain, I'm your villanelle,

Your bitter, bitching, unrepentant jezebel.