Dial M for Murder— Elster calling
Scottie to be his secret agent to spy
on his wife Madeleine. She'll hold him
spellbound on a passionate adventure.

At Big Basin the lady vanishes
behind the redwoods before he finds her
and asks "Where are you now?" She tells him
dangerous lies— her dark dreams in Spain.

Was that 39 steps he ran up in
the bell tower at San Juan Bautista?
Because of vertigo he couldn't climb
to the top where she fell off to her death.

Scottie's psychosis after her death lands
him in a sanitarium where Midge comes
to see him "Mother's here"— but that didn't
help his breakdown nor did Mozart's music.

He looks at the rose bouquet in the right
window of the florist— then he spots
Judy reminding him of Madeleine as if
like Orpheus, he wins her back from the dead.

From the rear window of Hotel Empire
the neon lights flash as he kisses her
so passionately that the room changes
to the livery stable kiss before she died.

Judy puts on the Spanish jade necklace
of Carlotta and Scottie knows without
a shadow of a doubt that she's Madeleine—
suspicion of the rich and strange— Murder!

He takes her not to dinner but downhill—
the mystery road of tall trees to that Mission—
drags her up the spiral stairs in a frenzy,
makes her confess to their near perfect crime.

Appearances are not what they seem—
Carlotta, Madeleine, and Judy—
the white shadow of three live ghosts
haunting Scottie to the end of his days.


            — Peter Y. Chou
                 Mountain View, 11-20-2008